5 Ways Dubsado Saves You Time
Are you a service provider juggling multiple leads and/or clients and using 3 or 4 different systems to keep it all straight? I bet your looking around wondering how some of these other business owners are keeping it all together and growing their business in the process. I will let you in on their secret…. systems and automation! Dubsado happens to be my favorite all in one business management tool. Read on to find out why!
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Running your own business is not easy! Tell me if this sounds familiar - it started with you doing something you absolutely love and before you knew it, your business turned into a juggling act and a never ending to do list. You’re not alone.
You now find yourself spending more time on support tasks needed to keep your business running smoothly and less on the tasks you love that made you start the business to begin with. Yep that oh so popular phrase, working IN your business instead of ON your business.
I know when you’re in the middle of it it’s hard to envision, but it actually doesn’t have to be that way. You can take back control of your day and your business with the right tools and systems.
One of those take back control systems is Dubsado. Ever heard of it? It's an absolute life saver for service-based businesses! I can personally vouch for that.
Check out the 5 Dubsado features below that will not only save you tons of time but also help you get more organized and help enhance your customer experience! Talk about a win, win, win!
What exactly is Dubsado?
Most people refer to Dubsado as a CRM (customer relationship management), in reality though it's so much more than that. It's more like an all in one business management system that enables you to track leads, client projects and even your time, it's enables you to send gorgeous branded proposals, contracts, questionnaires, invoices and emails. The best part is that not only can you track and send with their system, you can automate so it's does the work for you! Yep, you heard me right you can automate steps of your process!
Using a system like Dubsado is a game changer especially if you find yourself trying to manage multiple leads and/or clients while also trying to work in different systems to keep it all straight. Imagine how much time and brain power you could save if you had everything under one system in one place with the option to automate pieces of your process. Dubsado can do that for you while also saving you money by consolidating multiple systems.
Dubsado Time Saving Features
1. Proposal Templates
How much time do you spend creating and sending out proposals?
Imagine this…. Having beautiful branded proposal templates for each service you offer that you can instantly send out to a potential client that is personalized with smart fields that pull data in from the entry form they filled out.
Hold on, complete automation doesn’t work for you because you like to customize each proposal? No problem,
I am sure there are parts of the proposal that stay the same from client to client, set up a template so you only have to customize certain parts and get your proposals out in record time.
2. Ability to send Contracts & Invoices
This is probably one of my favorite features. Tell me if this sounds like your world right now.
Send a new potential client a proposal
They love what you have to offer and email or call you to say “let’s do it!”
You get the contract ready for them and email it off.
You wait for them to review, sign and send it back
You get the invoice ready and email that out to them and wait for payment
They submit payment
You breathe a sigh of relief, you have your next paying client
How many days did that take? How many emails did you have to send?
Dubsado gives you the ability to create a proposal that upon submission automatically redirects them to a customized contract that pulls in all the necessary information from the proposal they just agreed to. Once they sign the contract they are automatically redirected to an itemized, customized invoice that pulls in all the data from the proposal and contract. All of this is done with one email sent from you to the client!
3. Canned Emails
I bet if you checked your sent items you would see you are sending many of the same emails across all your clients. Do you type everything out from scratch each time? Or do you go to your sent items find the last time you sent that response, copy and paste it into a new email and change the clients name and information? Regardless of your approach your wasting valuable time and chances are if you are copying and pasting you’ve sent that email with the wrong client information at least once! Oops!
Dubsado gives you the ability to set up canned emails, templates, that you can use time and time again so you don’t waste time re-typing the same email over and over. Best part is that you can personalize them with smart fields that automatically pull in your client’s personal details from their profile.
Want to make it even more personalized? Set up the meat of the email as a template, use the smart fields to pull in their name and company name and leave a place holder to type in a sentence or two that is specific to them or their project.
4. Recurring Invoices and invoice reminders
Do you have clients that pay you on a monthly basis for your services? Do you set a reminder for yourself each month so you don’t forget to send them the latest invoice? How many times have you forgot to send an invoice or forgot to follow up on an invoice that wasn’t paid on?
No more of that with Dubsado, you can set up recurring invoices so that each month they go out automatically. Yep you don’t have to do a thing! And what’s better is that you can set up reminders to automatically go out if they are not paid in the time you indicate. Time saved and money earned!
5. Workflows/ Automations
Ok so this one takes all of the amazing time saving features above, brings them together and takes things to a whole other level. On the surface what we offer clients can seem so simple but have you taken the time to write out all the steps that go into what you do? Warning this is an eye opening exercise.
Your lead capturing and tracking process
Your proposal process
Appointment setting
Client on-boarding
Project kickoff
Execution of what they hired you for
Invoicing
Off boarding
The list can go on and on. There are SO many moving pieces! And that is for one client, imagine how much of your time is going into the client management piece of your business if you work with more than one client at a time.
In Dubsado you can set up your workflow and automate it completely or set it up to remind you each step of the way so you never have to wonder where you are with what client.
Imagine this…. A potential client visits your website, they like what you have to offer and want to learn more. They visit your contact page and send an inquiry your way.
It was a Dubsado form embedded on your contact page so the persons information automatically gets added to Dubsado and a new lead profile created.
This action triggers a canned “Thank you for your inquiry” email to automatically be sent to them with a link to a branded service guide that gives them all the juicy details about your offerings. Included in the email is a link to book a call with you.
They check out your availability, which is automatically updated because you have your calendar synced with Dubsado, and schedule a call with you.
Your new appointment shows up on your calendar and a new email is automatically sent to them with a questionnaire that is hosted in Dubsado that you need them to fill out so you can be prepared for the call.
A day or two passes and they haven’t filled out the questionnaire, a reminder email is automatically sent to them. You get a notification of this also so you know that the discovery call might be in jeopardy.
They fill out the questionnaire and get an automatic call reminder before your scheduled call.
Up to this point you haven’t had to do anything, Dubsado has handled all of the back and forth, collection of information and appointment setting.
You guys have the call and they are ready to move forward with hiring you.
You hang up, go to Dubsado, apply one of your templated proposals that has your contract and invoice linked to it and send it off using a canned email explaining how it all works.
The new client clicks on the link reviews your proposal, makes the necessary selections and signs off on the proposal. The very next page is your contract. They review it sign it and submit. The next page is your invoice for the deposit to get the project started. They submit payment and the project is now in motion.
Your new client automatically gets a “Thank you” email confirming sign off and payment, a link to your welcome packet and a link to schedule the project kickoff call.
You get the idea! You can keep going with this through your ENTIRE process.
If you are anything like me or most other hustling solopreneurs it is just now hitting you that you have been using up way too much time and effort on these non-revenue generating activities that are essential to keep your business running.
It’s all good, you made it here which means that you know that there is a better way. The time you’ve spent on these tasks hasn’t been a waste, without even knowing it you were building your foundation and perfecting your process so that when ready you could automate it.
Many think they have to start with an automated process from the very start but I actually think you get way more out of Dubsado and other similar systems if have your ideal process already mapped out. It’s a lot easier to adjust your process when you are doing things manually than it is when you’ve got things automated in a system.
What’s great about Dubsado is that it's not an all or nothing solution, you can automate as little or as much as you want and save time every step of the way.
Are you ready to start saving time and streamlining your business?
Sign up for Dubsado’s free trial (you have an unlimited time to try it out with 3 clients) and when you are ready get 20% OFF your first month or year with code: YStrategize
If you could automate any part of your process what would it be? Let me know in the comments below.