Dubsado for Marketing businesses: Why we should focus on our own operations, onboarding and experience

This blog post may contain affiliate links. This means I will share links to products and services that I have used, loved and happy to recommend. It also means I may get a little thank you (a tiny bit of dosh) and you might get an additional discount for the recommendation.

“Do as I say, not as I do …and I will totally cover up so you will never, ever see the trail of admin destruction and desperation behind our sparkly brand persona!”

We’ve all been there as service providers – super excited about a discovery call with a new lead or finally landing that dream client from our own brilliant marketing efforts.

But are you guilty of any of the below?

😱 Staying up late, spending hours creating a bespoke proposal/invoicing/preparing documents.

🤯 Playing email ping-pong with your new client (that you are meant to be helping save time) to get all the details you need to start working with them.

🙈 Wanting to outsource as you know it’s the right thing to do to scale, but just do it yourself as that creates more tasks.

😭 Being an absolute slave to your inbox/slack/whatsapp/pigeon mail or however else you are targeted by everyone because you are the grown-up aka business owner.

So the options are:

1) Read the 4 hour work week book (Does anyone want my copy? I am not on a beach in Bali 🌴✋)

2) As we mentioned ⬆️ outsource your crap.

3) Strip back your systems, plot out your client’s journey with you, and reduce the repetition.

We all know sorting out the foundations and implementing a strategy is always the right thing to do.

We tell our clients this, so if we have specific goals to work with more clients, scale our businesses, or banish the burnout, why are we not doing it for ourselves?

I will answer that – we think we can do it all.

We can, but we need a bit of help.

That’s where Dubsado comes in.

What is Dubsado used for?

Dubsado is a Customer Relationship Management system.

Not your Hubspot-type CRM, it’s a bit softer and has its own small(er) business vibes as it was designed to help people like me and you.

People who like things to look good, need simplicity and doesn’t cost the earth as a service provider.

In broad terms Dubsado allows you to:

➡️ Manage how the leads you want (and don’t) entering your marketing business
➡️ Gather important information required to onboard your clients

➡️ Get paid, on time
➡️  Keep in touch with regular communications to provide a great service and upsell to make more money
➡️ Say goodbye in a really nice way when your time working together comes to an end
➡️ Look slick AF, just how you should in the marketing world.

LEAD CAPTURE > DISCOVERY > ONBOARDING> ACTIVE CLIENT > OFFBOARDING > REVISIT

Sorted ✅

How does Dubsado exactly help me save time/money/my sanity?

One of the key functions of Dubsado is lead management.

You can use Dubsado to track leads, store contact information, and manage communication with potential clients. With Dubsado, you can easily categorise leads based on their source, type, and status.

Standard CRM stuff right? Yup, but this is the starting point.

Dubsado has guided your prospective client to an appointment scheduler (bye-bye emails and spending money with Calendly) and you’ve had a smashing disco chat and you’re a good fit.

POV: You’ve created your packages already and have beautifully branded full-screen proposal form that just slot together in minutes. You press send. It took 10 minutes, not two hours in Canva.

Sounds dreamy!

From here you can send contracts, invoices, onboarding forms, feedback questionnaires, or group them together with any email correspondence in your client’s own password-protected branded customer portal.

You can chase the things you really need to get started in a non-cringey way with a bit of simple logic and check in on your clients without you having to do anything. And the magic part – it actually feels like it’s you.

So, my advice if I haven’t convinced you already. If you want to be on your way the that 4-hour working week, get someone else to manage your business processes, then invest in a system first that actually gets you and your way of working. It doesn’t have to be AI driven or completely automated. We need those personal interventions in different scenarios.

2024 surely is the year we enjoy working in our businesses, have some breathing space in between client delivery, and feel confident to take on more work without the stress (thinks back to 2020 *shudders*)

So… is Dubsado worth it for marketing businesses?

In a nutshell… yes!

Streamlining your systems will give you the obvious benefit of time-saving after some upfront work but as a marketing business the main benefits are that you want to look good and show prospective customers the type of service they will get from you – on brand, professional and efficient which is priceless when converting leads.

If you want to give it a go yourself, you can use my affiliate code LUCYHAYRE to get 20% off your first month or first year’s subscription and there’s sooo much help to start getting set up from the chaps at Dubsado.

Here’s the second sales bit….

If it’s a bit overwhelming or you simply can’t be arsed to do something that doesn’t light up your soul, I can do it for you.

Save yourself 60+ hours (honestly it will take you that and the rest to learn and implement a new system 🙈) and get someone like me (a Dubsado nerd) to set it up in no time, giving you more time to cool work and life stuff!

Dubsado services this way >

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