Are you curious to know about using Dubsado as a creative?
I’m happy to help you see some behind the scenes of how you can make the process of running your online business seamless.
If you need a system that helps you manage how you get paid and more, then Dubsado can help support you in having an effective way to do so.
This system will help you get information from leads, book calls, and send the documentation that will help you to book out spots in your calendar.
What Is Dubsado?
Dubsado is a CRM for small business owners where you can manage your relationships with those who are interested in working together, whether you are a designer, photographer, or some other creative.
Dubsado can help you to have a seamless method to work 1:1 with your clients.
A Bit Of Background About My Business
For my creative business, I run an eCommerce consultancy, where I work 1:1 with clients on their Shopify store and email marketing.
Here is a simple overview of my inquiry to booking process:
- Leads inquire using a form from Dubsado. This gives me the necessary information to invite them to the next step.
- If it’s a good fit, I send an email in Dubsado inviting them to schedule a video call.
- After we have met and decided to move forward mutually. I send a proposal, client agreement, and invoice from Dubsado.
- Once they have paid their invoice. They will receive a welcome email automatically from Dubsado telling them the next steps.
There are a lot of tools you can use to create a contact form, book a call and send official documents. But I wanted an easy way for clients to have a seamless way to work together. I didn’t want clients to have to learn 4 – 5 tools just to work together. I mean, come on, technology should make our lives easier.
Before I knew of Dubsado and I was on the search to find a tool that could make this easy. Ultimately, I decided to go with Dubsado, which was about 6 years ago, and I still use them until this day.
So here is how you can use Dubsado more effectively in your business.
Use Dubsado’s Lead Capture Form
Instead of using a standard contact form, you can use Dubsado’s forms to capture information from your inquiries. The benefit of this is that your leads are going into your CRM, where you can manage what step of the booking process they are in for your business.
Also, I like that this information is housed in a separate space that is not on your website.
Plus, by using Dubsado’s form, the information your lead shares can easily be populated into other forms (i.e., proposals, contracts, questionnaires, etc.) Helping you to save time by using smart fields to add information. Here is an example of a lead capture form. You can, through the use of CSS, make your form look more on-brand, like I did with mine.
Once the lead capture form is filled out and sent, I receive an email from Dubsado in my inbox, letting me know I have a new lead. I also have a Zapier trigger set up to send me a text message as well. You can copy that trigger here.
Dubsado also allows you to set a workflow where if someone fills out your form. You can have a workflow that sends them an email right away. This is perfect if you want to send a welcome guide or some other information that may be useful in helping them to take the next steps.
Here is what the forms area looks like in Dubsado. You can see the Lead Capture section on the far right.
Scheduling Calls With Dubsado
When you are ready to schedule a call with your lead, you can do so using Dubsado’s scheduler. Prior to Dubsado having this feature, I used Acuity, which is still more robust. But if you only need a simple scheduler then Dubsado works fine.
The benefit of using Dubsado’s scheduler is that you reduce the number of tools you need to run your business. But if you do need something more robust that a tool like Acuity or Calendly may be best. For example, in Acuity, you can connect Google Analytics tracking, Facebook Pixels, etc. I currently use Dubsado’s scheduler, and it works well for me. Here is what it looks like.
Preparing & Sending A Proposal, Contract & Invoice In Dubsado
This is the part where you may be interested in the most. Getting someone actually to book your services! It’s so exciting, right?! Ok, this feature is what sold me on Dubsado back in the day, LOL.
Because I didn’t want to send prospects a proposal as a PDF in email, then have them sign their contract with a tool like Hello Sign and then ask them to pay me with a different invoicing system.
Early in my business, I knew that wouldn’t be sustainable long term, and also, people were still fairly new to doing business online. I wanted to make sure my systems were professional.
With Dubsado, I was able to achieve sending my prospects ONE link that would allow them to do all that in one shot.
In Dubado, you can set your proposals to include a contract and invoice. So that when your prospects accept the proposal, they automatically go to the contract, sign off on that, and then can pay their invoice. All in one seamless step.
You might be thinking about how long it takes to create contracts, proposals, etc. Great question!
Creating Proposal, Contracts & Questionnaire Templates In Dubsado
In Dubsado, you can create templates for your proposals, contracts, and questionnaires. These templates will save you time from recreating forms and other necessary documents in your business.
One cool feature in Dubsado is smart fields, smart fields allow you to populate information into additional forms easily. For example, when someone fills out the lead capture form with their name and email, you can use the following smart fields (below) to populate the information into contracts, etc.
{{client.firstName}}
{{client.email}}
{{client.company.name}
There are smart fields for other things, such as payment schedules, form links, etc.
Once you create your template, just add smart fields to populate your client’s information. That way, the only thing you have to change is the specifics of the project! I definitely recommend setting up your templates early; that way, you are ready to send a proposal after a lead inquires about working with you.
I use a proposal template within my business to help me save time. I just customize the important areas for that specific project.
Client Portals In Dubsado
Once you book your client, all their documents go into Dubsado’s client portal. You have to enable it from your clients’ project space, but I like that my clients have one central area to access important documents pertaining to their business.
Inside, they can find their proposal, contract, invoices, and other documents you add. Allowing them to be able to refer back to these when needed easily.
Questionnaires In Dubsado
You can use Dubsado’s questionnaires to gather other information you may need from your clients. Such as website strategy if you are a designer, brand shoot information if you’re a photographer, etc.
Canned Emails or Email Templates In Dubsado
In Dubado, you can have canned emails or pre-written email templates to help make your responses faster. I use this feature in various ways, such as:
- Welcome emails
- Inquiry responses
- Client emails
- And more!
Workflows or Automation In Dubsado
Yes, there is an automation feature in Dubsado called workflows. They can be used for various things, such as changing project statuses after an invoice has been paid. Sending emails after a contract is signed. Adding a payment plan etc.
Other Nice Features of Dubsado
Dubsado has a lot of nice features that definitely take time to get used to when you are new to the system. For example, Dubsado has…
- Basic Bookkeeping
- Zapier Integration
- Quickbooks Integration (doesn’t integrate with QB self-employed)
- Set up help and support (good if you are coming from another system)
- White-labeling
- Financial Overview
- Lead Tracking (so you can track where most of your leads are finding you)
- Tasks boards – similar to Trello
Dubsado has definitely been one of the best investments I made for my business. It saves me so much time and frustration, plus they have a great community that is available to answer questions via support. There is also an active FB Community where you can find more like-minded entrepreneurs sharing tips etc.
If you are looking for a flexible CRM, then definitely check out Dubsado. You can save 20% off either your first month or first year when you use the code: themaycreative or click the button below.
If you have additional questions, let me know.
