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Need a CRM for Small Business?
You’re listening to episode 109 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host – Amanda Warfield. If you’re an old friend, welcome back and if you’re new around here – Chasing Simple was created to help you uncomplicate your life and business. My mission is to help you simplify so that you can truly live your life, and this week on the podcast, my guest is going to blow you away with tips on simplifying your business. If you’re looking for CRM software for small business, you’re in the right place.
I’m joined by Colie James – a family filmmaker and systems strategist for photographers based outside Boulder, Colorado. In addition to making art that reflects the reality of parenthood, she helps photographers and other creatives build businesses that are sustainable and profitable using systems and automations.
Colie joined me to chat all about systems and automations within your business. We cover things like: what are systems, automations and CRMs? Where to begin with automating? Why are systems so important? and what do they actually do for you as a business owner?
Whether you are brand new to systems, or you already have started your journey with them – this episode is a can’t miss. Let’s dive in.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Check out the Year of Content Prompts
- Learn more about Dubsado (Use code Colie James for 30% off your first payment)
- Check out Honeybook (Get 50% off your first year with this link!)
- Listen to Episode 054 to hear how I’ve used Honeybook to streamline my podcast guest workflow
- Check out Quickbooks
- Learn more about Narrative
- Learn more about Aftershoot
- This week’s action step: Template your emails for your customer journey.
- This week’s book recommendation: Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield and @coliejames
Colie James is a family filmmaker and systems strategist for photographers based outside Boulder, Colorado. In addition to making art that reflects the reality of parenthood, she helps photographers and other creatives build businesses that are sustainable and profitable using systems and automations.
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Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate.
You’re listening to episode 109 of the Chasing Simple Podcast. And I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. If you’re an old friend, welcome back. And if you’re new around here, Chasing Simple was created to help you. Uncomplicate your life in business. My mission is to help you simplify so that you can truly live your life. And this week on the podcast, my guest is going to blow you away with tips on simplifying your business. I’m joined by Colie James, a family filmmaker and system strategist for photographers based outside of Boulder, Colorado. In addition to making art that reflects the reality of parenthood, she helps photographers and other creatives build businesses that are sustainable and profitable using systems and automation.
Today Colie is joining me to chat all about systems and automations within your business. We cover things like what are systems automations and CRMs, where to begin with automating. Why are systems so important and what do they actually do for you as a business owner, whether you are brand new to the idea of systems, or you already have started your journey with them?
This episode is a can’t miss let’s dive in.
Hey Colie, I am so excited to have you on. I know that we have so much in common and I’m so excited for all the listeners to get to know you. So why don’t you tell them a little bit about who you are, what you do and who you serve.
Hey guys. I am Colie James. I am a family filmmaker, and now the Sato strategists, they this based right outside of Boulder, Colorado.
I started my business as most photographers do, you know, just taking pictures of their own kids. And I loved it so much that I started taking pictures of other families. And then almost from the beginning, I started doing videos, which was not a very popular thing, almost nine and a half years ago, so I’ve been making films and slideshows for my clients
from the very beginning. And I know that now that’s a really popular thing. And in the last year, not necessarily because of the pandemic, but aligned with it, I started offering dubsado setups for photographers so that they could get more time back from their business to spend with their family members
and what we’re going to talk about today is systems automation, things having to do with Dubsado
so could you go back and tell us a little bit about how you got to that point of offering that service? How did you even get into dealing with systems and automations?
Yeah, so I like the business side of, of being a photographer. I know many people do not, but I actually enjoy the business side, but what I don’t enjoy is doing tasks that I have to repeat over and over again.
Busy Work
I just, yeah. Busy work. I can’t stand busy work. And so almost from the beginning of my business, I was looking for ways to automate those kinds of tasks so that I wasn’t doing them. I didn’t have a CRM, which is a customer relationship manager. I didn’t have one of those the first few years of my business, but once I discovered what a CRM was, oh, I was hooked because then I didn’t have to save my emails in Gmail as drafts ,and then send them to my clients. I wasn’t losing leads because I wasn’t trying to figure out who I’d emailed and who I hadn’t. So from the very beginning, I was looking for ways to save time. And once I got introduced to CRMs, I think it was back in 2016 or 2015. I was like, oh, these are amazing. And being the tech person that I am.
Once I discovered the CRMs. I wanted to know everything that was possible with them. So I just drove straight in to figure out, oh, I can send my emails automatically. Well, this is great. What else does it do? So I just started going through, and then I realized that many photographers don’t like the tech.
And so they sometimes. Invest in CRM and they’re not even using them to their full potential because they just don’t know what else they will do besides send emails automatically. Cause I know I’ve mentioned that a few times, but that is the one thing that almost Everybody knows that a CRM does, but CRM is do some much more.
Okay. So what other things do they do then? What are things, should we be thinking about as far as systems and automations and choosing a CRM? What exactly is it taking off of our plate?
So besides automating, or even just keeping track of your client communication, I think that’s a big one. The second most popular feature of almost every CRM that you can purchase
on the market, including HoneyBook, which is what Amanda uses is the proposal or quote system. So that is for us service providers, we offer our clients some service on a proposal. It could be a single service. It could be that you’re giving them a menu of services to choose from, and then it will automatically connect to a contract.
So yes guys, no more email back and forth. No more. I know a few people who are still physically mailing people, contracts to get signatures and having them mail them back. It is 2022. We do not need to be doing any of that anymore, but it will present the contracts that they can electronically sign it.
And then it will present the invoice where they’re either paying you in full for your service. If that’s the way that you roll, or you can set it to collect a certain percentage or a certain amount in order to retain your service.
Have you seen anyone do anything? I’m sure you have different with CRMs outside of just those things.
Like, for example, as you know, and as those of you that have listened to the podcast episode about this, which I’ll link to in the show notes, I use it, I’ve set up a whole brand within HoneyBook, my CRM. Just for the podcast so that when I have guests, I have all of the guest information in one place. Have you seen anything else similar to that, that other people have done that people could maybe think of adding into their own business?
No. So sometimes I get people that say, oh, but you know, I charge for my services in a different program. And that’s fine. I think that what you’ve mentioned is if you have a service business, Where you are collecting any kind of information. I think CRMs are a great place for you to go to get everything centralized.
So that’s the other big thing is we talked about client communication. We talked about the onboarding process in terms of getting clients actually booked, but that centralized area where you can keep not only the client information, but anything that they’ve sent you, all of their payment records, everything in one system so that you are not constantly going to multiple apps
to find something for one particular client. So I don’t have any like really good other stories besides, I mean, cause you’re doing a great job with podcasts, but anybody else who just needs to collect information from clients and, you know, have a form out there that’s in public so that someone could fill it out to start the process, a CRM is a really good place to start.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. We know any kind of information we can use for clients, for onboarding, things like that. If there’s someone who’s listening and they’re like, I don’t know. I really love my system. It works for me. This is like, this is what works. What would you say to them as far as why they need systems and automations, why they need a CRM? What does that do for them in the long run?
let’s talk about scaling, even if you’re not at a point in your business right now, where you were thinking about scaling, as much as you can streamline your business.
Now it makes it to where you are able to scale when you are ready and beyond actually scaling your business and spending more time working on your business instead of in your business, which is a, you know, it’s a good phrase that lots of people use. I actually pitched it to my photographer clients, as you get to spend more time with your family, because I know what a lot of us not just photographers any service provider, what we realize is that we go into owning our own business to have time to ourselves and run our own schedule.
But when it comes to all of the things that you do. Besides your actual service, it takes up so much more time than any of us anticipated. So anything that you can do to automate the process? I mean like bookkeeping, like how many of us are using QuickBooks, because it’s a really easy way to again, get all of your financial information centralized so that you can categorize your transactions.
You can look at your invoices, you can run reports and see how much money you’re making. QuickBooks is like. the financial CRM that I’m talking about, any of the CRMs that cause I used a Dubsado and Amanda used Honeybook and there are many others, all of those do for your business, what QuickBooks is doing for your money.
So if anybody relates to that analogy, I hope that that helps.
I think that’s such an important point of you’ve got more time for your family, because I know that when I first started my business and I’ve heard this from so many of my students and clients. We start a business and we think this is going to give us freedom.
And then we end up chained to our desk because we had no idea how much was actually going to go into running a business and how many different hats we were going to have to wear. Especially those of us that are solopreneurs, which most of the listeners are. There was a lot. No on our plates at any given time and a lot of different things that we need to do in order to feel like we’re not neglecting parts of our business, which is where systems and automations come in.
So you mentioned QuickBooks. Are there any other systems automations out there that you recommend to clients that you particularly love to use for your own business? Other kinds of things they can think about outside of a CRM tool?
Well, one of the things that you talked about was why should someone look at a CRM if they like their system that they currently have?
And I would say in the last three months, I have had several people who have switched over to Dubsado. And the reason that they did it was to eliminate their calendar subscription. So I know a lot of us use acuity or Calendly. All kinds of things to schedule discovery calls, to schedule our actual service and do those things.
But so many of the CRMs are now offering their own scheduling feature inside that if you haven’t taken a look at kind of getting the centralized client communication along with the scheduling in the exact same. Software, you should really, you know, shop around, look around or see if your particular CRM already offers it.
And you’re just not taking advantage of it because in the last week I have talked to four people who all have Dubsado and Dubsado has a scheduler, but they’re also using Acuity because they just haven’t found the time to move their scheduling over into Dubsado because then it can do all kinds of things.
If everything is in your same app, your calendar is going to be talking immediately to the projects. And I mean, you can do all kinds of workflows with this. So I feel like every six months. People should just literally write a list of all of the subscriptions that they pay for and what they do, like how they function for you.
And just see if, you know, one of your pieces of software now offers that feature so that you can stop paying for a separate service.
I love that so much I’m not a systems expert, but I feel like I’ve talked to so many friends in the industry and they’ve mentioned something about Calendly or acuity and I’m like, You pay for a CRM?
Why are you paying for both? Like what? And people just, they just don’t know. They don’t realize that that the CRM tools can do that. So I love that. And I love the tip about looking at all of your subscriptions and the things you’re paying for a make sure that you’re not double paying for anything,
because we all hate to be paying for subscriptions that we don’t need.
I mean, it’s pointless. And I do just want to put a caveat out there because I don’t actually tell everyone to get rid of their calendar subscription. There are certain businesses. That you should probably hold onto that acuity just a little longer. And that’s, if you have a team, like we’re mostly talking about solopreneurs today, but just in case somebody is listening that isn’t a solo preneur and you have multiple people on your team and you’re like, oh, I can switch to my schedule or my CRM.
No, probably not. They are not that sophisticated yet to be able to handle multiple schedules in order to schedule out. So that’s just my little caveat, you know, you need to do some research before you just. Automatically canceled that acuity or that Calendly subscription.
Love that. Thank you. Okay. So we’ve got finances, we’ve got client relationships, we’ve got calendars.
Are there any other parts of your business that you automate or have systems for that you would recommend people kind of thinking about?
not really in the CRM world I use a program called narrative and narrative. And so granted, these might be a little bit more specific for photographers.
So I apologize. Narrative helps me blog faster. It adds the SEO words and you know, it, it’s very pretty, and it’s very easy to use it as a drag and drop interface. So I use that for blogging. I also use something called after shoot to now cull my images. It is AI guys. It is amazing. It’ll run through there.
It’ll get rid of all of the ones where your clients half blinked. And now the system is so intuitive that if it’s supposed to be that their eyes are closed to like, for example, there was one where originally it tried to eliminate it. Because the woman had her eyes closed, but she was praying, but all agree that because she was praying, her eyes could be closed, but now they’ve done an update where it’s only doing it.
If it can tell that the eye blink was in, you know, not intentional. So I thought that was really amazing update, but those are two pieces of software that automate parts of my business that don’t really have anything to do with anybody other than photographers
. Okay. Technology is both amazing and terrifying at the same time.
Like that’s so cool. Also like kind of scary. Okay. Love that. What about for the people that are listening that are very, very new business owners and they are maybe not quite ready to invest in a CRM. And they’re unsure. What should they be thinking about longterm with their business? What should they be looking at?
As they’re trying to choose their CRM, maybe what kind of things should they be thinking about for.
Okay, so I’m going to take one step back and I’m going to say it’s totally not true. Everybody is ready to invest in the CRM guys. It’s $35 a month. It’s like the cost of a dinner. I just want to say that in case anybody thinks that the software is very expensive, it is not.
But if you are not ready to invest the time and getting a CRM done, let’s talk about what you should do. The more that you can streamline your own business systems without a CRM, the easier it’s going to be for you to transfer your business into a CRM. So for example, we’ve talked about emails quite a bit.
There are so many emails that I know for a fact, people are writing from scratch every single day in their business that they shouldn’t be. So if that means that you need a Google doc, Of all of your template and emails that you can go to, to copy and paste from. If that means that you saved them in Gmail as drafts like I did, when I first started my business, that is a really good way to make sure that you are communicating consistently to each and every lead or client that you get.
The second thing that I encourage everybody to do before you take one. Towards a CRM is that you write down what you want your client experience to be from beginning to end and guys, whether it has automation or not. If you don’t have a clear vision on what you want your customer journey to be, there’s no way you’re going to be able to implement it into a CRM when you’re ready to purchase one.
Like, for example, for myself, let’s do setups because I keep on talking about photography and you know, most of you guys aren’t photographers. So for my one-to-one service, where I set up your Dubsado for you on my website, there are two ways that you can start the process. You can either schedule that 20 minute call direct off of a scheduler, or you can fill out a contact for.
I’ll look it over and then I will send you a scheduler if it, you know, if you’re asking for a service that I provide, or if I could help you make the decision on whether or not it’s a good choice for you, then we have the call. Then I send you the proposal that once again has the offer, it has the contract and it has the invoice.
And then the moment that you fill it out and you pay your creative fee, I have a whole system on the backend that gets you started for the system. It opens a client portal, which guys, if you don’t have a CRM that has a client portal, it’s amazing. It’s just this place that your client can go and see every single thing that they’ve ever filled out for you or that you’ve done for them or that you’ve sent them.
So that they’re not constantly digging in the emails for links then I send you four different forms that you filled. Again, if you’re a service provider, you probably ask your clients for some kind of information. If you’re a website designer, you ask them for their copy and the images to go. And like all of these kinds of things, you can create those forms inside your CRM and send them to the client and then they can fill them out, you know, by the deadline and then you can review them.
And then I schedule a strategy call. Which means I’m using the scheduler a second time so that they can pick a time for the strategy call. And then after, you know, I have a series of emails that go out to nurture them, to assure them of what I’m doing. And then at the end of the day, I have a very loosely templated email.
That’s like, these are all the things that I did in your account. You have 30 more days of support. Here’s the list of things that you should do to get started. So all of those have different levels of automation, but even if I wasn’t doing any of that automatically, at least I wouldn’t be able to visually see what got sent to each client.
Even if I was still hitting, send, it makes the experience more consistent. So if you sit down, and you brainstorm this all out, then you can start thinking about what should be automated and what shouldn’t be automated, because I got to tell you not everything needs to be automated, but I would love it to be ready automatically for me to hit send.
Okay. A couple of things that I just love there and want to point out first and foremost, just like with batching, your content, which you guys know. I talk about all the time having a CRM tool, having that system in place or those systems, depending on how complex things get inside of your business, having those in place means.
You don’t have to think about the client stuff other than the actual service that you’re providing. You don’t have to think about it because you’ve already done it once and it’s there to be used over and over and over again. The other thing that you mentioned that I really loved was not having to think about what you’re going to say, because you’ve already written it out.
So all of these emails that you’re sending, yes, it provides consistency for. Your clients as a whole for each individual client, but also for your brand, because as you create these templates and emails, which yes you can do in Gmail and save them as a template there now, but you’ve
got with, it was templates Seeger.
I haven’t looked in so long. I didn’t even know that it is
just
start offering that. And I use it for things that don’t need to be inside of my CRM tool, but I use HoneyBook. Both of my businesses for my podcast, for the summit. Like I use HoneyBook for everything because it makes it so easy. But when you send things like a brand guide or when you send those forms and questionnaires, they’re all branded to your brand, which creates a cohesive experience for your clients.
And then in the copy you’re sending in those emails. You’re not having to let me type out this email as quick as I can to get it off and get to the next thing on my to-do list. You already have it written and you’ve been able to take the time to add in branded phrases and things like that. You’ll notice if you ever GIFs
yeah. If you ever work with me and once we’re officially, the contract is signed, one of the emails I send right after that, it’s like I’m throwing Mickey shape confetti. Like that’s one of the first lines I’m still excited, but because it’s. I can create that consistent branded experience. You guys all know cats and Disney?
That’s my thing. I can create that consistent experience because I’m not having to rewrite those emails every single time that I send them. And it makes it so you’re not forgetting details. You’re not saying, oh, I wish that I had remembered to send that to the client. Oh, I forgot this detail. Let me send another email.
It’s all there. You have all the details you need. You just got to fill it out. However your template needs to be filled out. So
yeah. And for the template. I just also want to say, cause someone said to me one time, but I don’t want my clients. I don’t want my clients to get the same, you know, bland email.
I’m like, yeah, no, if you’ve ever seen one of my emails, they’re definitely not bland. Sometimes I cuss if it’s appropriate for whatever the client is, I have GIFs, I have emojis. And the other thing, guys, It’s good to have a base, but if I need to add one or two sentences for that client, it takes me 20 seconds to just type a few sentences.
And then the email is personalized. I am asking them how their kid’s birthday party was last week, or if they’ve done their first client through Dubsado yet. I mean, I have the ability to just very quickly add in a few sentences and then approve it so that it will still be sent, but it will also be personalized.
Absolutely. Just like again with batching, batching is a system. When you are batching your content. I tell my students all the time. Just because you have scheduled out content. It doesn’t mean that if you’re inspired, you can’t go add more content that you keep post extra stuff. Like, just because you have something doesn’t mean that’s the end all be all in the same is true for this.
Okay. Everyone’s convinced they’re going to get a CRM tool. They’re going to implement this in their own business. Where do they begin? Because I know this is where most people get stuck.
how do you start? So I just want to say on the surface, every single CRM might look like they have the exact same features and they do.
I mean, like I said, they all have a proposal quote system. They all let you send some kind of consistent automated client email. Some of them have a few different features. So like 17 hats, we were talking about QuickBooks 17 hats actually has financial capabilities inside the CRM to where you technically wouldn’t need a separate QuickBooks.
Like it will bring your bank information from your checking account, from your credit cards and let you categorize your expenses inside of 17 hats. They are the only CRM that does that. But so every one of them might have like this one little quirk that makes it awesome. For example, HoneyBook was one of the first ones to have an app.
So with having an app on your phone, that is like top level is your number one priority. You might just need to get HoneyBook because they are top of game. When it comes to having an app on your phone, where Dubsado stands out is design. My proposals are very beautiful and you can’t tell that you’re not on my website.
Like. It sometimes you need a little coding to like really wow people, but straight out of the box Dubsado offers images and copy and all kinds of questions on your proposal to make it look really nice and elevated. Just one more example, if you are a person who loves reporting and you like to be able to see, you know, finite information details for like every little thing, Tava is an amazing CRM for that.
You know, on the surface, they all have the same. Capabilities, but what you should do is write a list of things that you want in a CRM. So for example, if having a scheduler is important, make sure that you’re getting a CRM that has a scheduler, because there are still three that don’t have schedulers.
And then of course, you know, the other little things, like if you are a QuickBooks user and you want your CRM to be able to integrate with QuickBooks, Immediately copy your invoices from the CRM to QuickBooks, make sure that you choose one that integrates with QuickBooks. A few of them will integrate with wave or with zero.
So if you’re not a QuickBooks user, so these are all of the things that you should kind of look for when you’re shopping around for your CRM. And if you’re still confused and you’re like, well, Colie I really want to know if I can find a CRM that will do this. Just hit me up on Instagram. I completely love helping people find.
The CRM that works for them. And even though I use Dubsado and I love it, and Amanda uses HoneyBook and I’m a fan of HoneyBook, I will really try to help you find a CRM that works for your business and not just the one that I loved the most.
I know that I used a bunch of free trials. To test out a bunch of different ones that was helpful for getting in because on paper, when I was reading blog posts, I liked Dubsado better, but then I got in there and I was very confused and it wasn’t a straight line.
Likes the interface. Yeah, you should, you should never buy a CRM if you have not done a trial and you have not physically clicked the buttons because I actually have a student who came to Dubsado and then she said, Nope, I’m going back to HoneyBook. And that’s fine. I love that, you know, that the, the system and HoneyBook is more intuitive to you.
And it makes sense because even if you take a course, even if you hire someone to, you know, set it up, if it doesn’t make sense, when you’re inside the CRM, you will not use it. To its full potential. And that is what I want for everyone. I want everyone to get a CRM that makes sense to them. That gives you as much time back in your business as possible.
Do you have a Dubsado trial link that people can?
I do? It’s just Colie James and that will get you 30% off of your first payment, whether that’s a month or it’s for a year. And honestly, Dubsado with their trial. And that’s the other thing that you should look at when you’re comparing them, or it might influence the order in which you try them out.
trial is not timed, so you could actually have it have Dubsado trial forever. But when you process three different clients is when the trial ends versus, you know, I think HoneyBook’s is 14 days. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s time. So just make sure that you’re paying attention to that. And also guys, these CRMs want your business.
So if you’re ever doing a trial. And you didn’t get to use it fully. And you know, you’re still trying to decide, just reach out to that company. I am sure that they will extend your trial, you know, even if it’s just for another week or two, so that you can go back in and making sure that it is the CRM for you or it’s not.
That’s a great tip. Okay. I will link to we’ll link slash put that information in the show notes guys. And I’ll also put I have a code for HoneyBook, and then don’t remember exactly what it is. I think it’ll all be in the show notes. If you want to try and test out both of those, there are plenty of other ones that are out there.
If you want to test out others, definitely do your research. Okay. So they’ve got, they’ve chosen their CRM. Then what’s the next step,
Getting organized enough to get it in there. So, like I said, I mean, you should sit down and strategy is so much about whether or not you’re going to be successful in your CRM.
So making sure that you have, you know, all of your canned email templates, ready to go, making sure that you have actually sat down and brainstormed what you want your client journey to be, but that’s two steps guys in your client journey, you should write down what you want it to be. And then there’s the process of seeing if that’s possible in your CRM.
So like, it’s one thing for you to say, Hey, I want it to do, you know, this, this, this, and this. And then when you go in your CRM, you have no idea how to do it. So it’s like mapping process. Also, guys, I just want to say there are so many resources out there for every single CRM. All of them have usergroups inside of Facebook.
So if you lay out your customer journey, like you want it to be, and then you get stuck, I am 100% sure that you can either get help for that inside their user group or many of the CRMs offer free one-to-one calls, where you can speak with, you know, somebody that works for that company and they will help you figure out how to implement your customer journey into their system.
Yeah. Love that. And w okay. I have four brands inside of Honeywell, so I’ve created. Uh, controllers and times at this point, what has helped me most was to write it all out on my whiteboard, what I thought the workflow would look like. And then as I went as I got clients, I would create each email, each flow, each whatever flows or honey books, new thing, where you have everything all in one place, each questionnaire, all of that stuff, as they created each piece.
I did it as I got the client. So then I could continue to change it and make it better. And then once I had lived out the workflow a few times, I waited until then to actually set up the workflow inside HoneyBook. I know for me, that worked best because I. will create a workflow and then actually get into having a client realize that that didn’t work at all and they need to do something different.
So that was helpful having on the whiteboard so I could make notes and make changes and add this. And that, that was really helpful. If anyone is like, I’m completely overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start, maybe try that, just write it out on a piece of paper, in a word doc, wherever and follow it without actually implementing it into the CRM tool just yet.
So I’m just going to say, I think that is that’s great. And I totally agree. But I think that also depends on which CRM you’re using. So like in Dubsado. I would actually suggest that you created it and then if it doesn’t work, you can just change anything that you want. And I actually tell all of my clients, listen, we did this, I need you guys to live with the system for three months.
If there are things that you don’t like in three months, we can tweak anything that you want, but don’t jump in there and then think that you don’t like this one thing and then tweak it, I’m fairly positive that after you’ve had a few more clients, you’re going to want to tweak it back. I mean, there are reasons that we set it up like we did.
So make notes every time there’s something that you’re doing, whether it’s in a workflow or you’re just doing it manually, like have a set place on your computer to make notes about the workflow steps and whether or not you think that they’re working for you and what kind of tweaks you want to make.
Because one recent change that I think. Was I realized I didn’t like I don’t as a client, as a client of someone else. I do not like when I fill out a form and I don’t get an email confirmation. It makes me wonder whether or not they got it. So recently I’ve started adding in reminders for questionnaires and complete a completion email.
That’s like, you know, thank you so much for taking the time to do that. I really appreciate it. I’m going to read over your answers and I’m going to get back to you, you know, whatever the next steps are. But I realized that as a client, that was something that I wanted. So then I implemented it as the, you know, service provider.
So also guys, your experiences have value as a client. So if you ever hire someone and they do something that you love, write it down. If you hire someone and they do something that you hate, write it down because you want to make sure that those are influencing how you communicate and interact with your own clients.
Hello? Is it such a good tip, such a good tip to be paying attention to not just what you’re doing, but who you’re hiring and how that
affect how it makes you feel as a client, because we all want our clients to feel valued. We all want them to feel taken care of. And so if you have an experience where, I mean, even if the service provider that you hired, isn’t doing a bad job, but you’re like, oh, I really wish they had done this.
That’s probably something that you need to write down and make sure that you’re doing in your own business.
I love it. Now we all have agreed that we need a CRM tool. We’ve started thinking about different things that we can systematize and automate in our business. We’ve decided what CRM tool we want to use.
And we’ve started thinking about what our workflows are going to be, what our client journey is going to be, whether we DIY it or we want to. Get Dubsado and hire Colie to do it for us links in the show notes. If you want to check out our services, we are on our way. if you could give everyone one action step this week to take action, to get started with this process, what would it be?
It would be emails. I don’t think people realize how much time they waste on their emails. And you teach batching content. It’s the same thing with like batching your content for Instagram or even emails or whatever it is. You sit there and you think about what you want to do for so long. And you do that every single time.
And if you took that time and you added it up, I’m sure you would get a whole day back in your week. I mean, seriously guys, it is a lot of times. Wasted when you’re not using just really simple templates. So the first thing that I always suggest is the emails, making sure that you figure out every single email that you need to send someone in the client journey from when they inquire to when you finally deliver and you close out their project.
And then of course, that second step is mapping out that customer journey, you know, whatever you envision in your head, not even thinking about the CRM, just what you want your clients to experience from beginning to end.
Wonderful. Okay. Everyone. I want you to start doing that this week. Start mapping out those emails and as you’re doing it, I want you to send us a DM.
Both of our Instagrams are in the show notes. Again, send us a DM and let us know that you’re working on it. If you have any questions or anything, Colie is definitely the person to ask, but let us know that you’re working on it. And then what would be one book recommendation that you have for everyone listening?
So I love Building a StoryBrand. I think that. It applies to so much of our business from beginning to end, whether it’s your websites, whether it’s a communication, whether or not it’s the communication that you’re putting inside of your CRM. So if you haven’t read building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller, I do highly recommend it.
It’s also an audio book, which is how I listened to it. So either way you can get the information and you will really start to think about your business, your website, the way that you interact with your clients, how you communicate in a different way.
Perfect Colie thank you so much again for being here and for talking through systems and automations and CRMs with us.
I really appreciate it.
Oh, thank you for having me, Amanda and I can’t wait to see you
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