Tools

The Most Important Tool for Service-Based Business Owners

October 6, 2023

I'm Amy! I'm a small business educator who got hooked on entrepreneurship after starting a cleaning business in college. Since my Clorox days, I've built many businesses. I've sold businesses. And I've helped small business owners do the same.

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Dubsado for service based businesses

Using Dubsado For Service Based Businesses

Dubsado is a customer relationship management platform. Also known as a CRM. You can use Dubsado for service based businesses, in any stage of business. Both beginners and experienced business owners can enjoy Dubsado.

Dubsado’s platform allows you streamline your business without manually sending important information to clients like contracts, invoices, and those emails asking what package they want to purchase.

With Dubsado, you can create an online experience for your client to select their package, sign their contract, pay their invoice, and receive everything they need from you. The best part is, Dubsado allows you to easily set this up in an automated fashion that doesn’t require your hands at the steering wheel.

This means your business can be running without you necessarily being clocked in the office.

Save 20% off your first month or year with Dubsado by clicking right here.

Why Do You Need A CRM

Oftentimes clients ask me if they really need a CRM platform like Dubsado. They are new business owners and pinching every penny they can in order to sustain their business. This is a feeling I understand all too well.

My recommendation is for every new business to have a CRM platform. I do not recommend you only signup for a CRM platform after your business begins to make sales. And this is why…

A CRM platform requires you to carefully consider the workflow and client journey of your business. Inside your CRM platform, you will be creating your business’s standard forms, contracts, emails, etc. And you will be deciding when your client should be receiving what.

Therefore, signing up for a CRM at the very beginning of your business will allow you to map out your client journey while streamlining it or saving time. Right out of the gate, you’ll be able to operate your business optimally and with ease.

Plus, transitioning your business to a CRM platform can prove to be difficult the older your business is. If you wait to secure a CRM platform in order to save money, you could be causing a headache for yourself down the road.

Save 20% off your first month or year with Dubsado by clicking right here.

Getting Organized

Dubsado is an amazing tool for service based businesses. One main reason is that it allows you to truly organize your business.

Inside Dubsado, you will immediately see your dashboard. Your Dubsado dashboard allows you to see your current income goal, upcoming income, current projects, and any to-do’s you have lingering.

The platform is also created to store important items such as your forms, contracts, and email templates. These will become extremely important to keep organized inside your business as it evolves with time.



Creating All Forms

Let’s talk about the different forms you can create inside Dubsado. Dubsado allows you to create contracts, questionnaire, proposals, and lead captures. Let’s break down each one.

Contracts

You are likely familiar with what a contract is. Dubsado allows you to create custom contracts based on their templates that can be populated with smart fields. This means when a client goes to sign their contract, their personal information is already populated. Clients can sign contracts easily.

Questionnaires

During the client journey, you may need to send a questionnaire to gather important information. If you’re a wedding photography for example, this could be day-off timeline information.

Proposals

Proposals are a fantastic way to streamline the booking process! With a proposal, the client is able to enter their personal information and then select their package. The functionality of a proposal allows them to then directly sign their contract and pay their invoice. This saves you countless of hours manually sending things back and forth.

Lead Captures

This is the forth form you can create with Dubsado. You can think of a lead capture form as the “knock at the door”. When you create a lead capture, you are creating a questionnaire (similar to a contact form) that potential clients fill out to let you know they are interested in working with you.

Creating All Emails

Another reason why Dubsado is a fantastic tool for service based businesses is because it allows you to create, store, and send all emails.

When you walk through your client’s journey working with you (from inquiry to delivery), you will notice that you send many emails. For example, you will send an email thanking someone for a meeting, collecting an invoice, delivering a photo gallery (or whatever your offer is), and so much more.

Dubsado allows you to create email templates so you can easily send the same emails to different clients, with only needing to customize minimal text.

These emails are also smart populated. This means Dubsado stores your client’s information like name, project location, etc and can atomically bring those into each email. This is another way you can save time while delivering top customer service.

Streamlining Your Workflow

After your forms and emails are created, you can begin creating various workflows. This allows emails and forms to send automatically based on what your client journey looks like.

For example, after a client completes a proposal, selects their package, signs, their contract, and pays their invoice, what would be the next step? The next step would be to send them an email confirming their payment and welcoming their aboard, right?

This is a great example of a workflow you can atomically set up inside Dubsado. Workflows like these allow your business to continue to run even when you’re not actively at your desk.

Scheduling Calls or Meetings

Another great capability Dubsado has for service based businesses is the scheduling feature.

For many service based businesses, we like to have something commonly known as a discovery call. This is a complimentary phone call you may have with someone interested in working with you to better get to know one another and to discuss your services at length.

Dubsado allows you to create appointment types and set your availability so clients can schedule a call or meeting with you. With this feature you’re able to assign email templates to send, like appointment reminders, and decide when to send them. You can also attach forms, like questionnaires, to the appointment as well.

These appointments can also have invoices attached to them. This is a great feature if your business model offers paid calls.

Tracking Income

Lastly, Dubsado can also track income and expenses. This makes it really easy to understand your numbers and determine the profit of your business easy month.

When using a CRM platform like Dubsado, you can connect Stripe and/or PayPal to complete transactions. This allows Dubsado to collect your income and deposit it directly into your bank account.

Dubsado can help you track income, expenses and profit each month. However, it can also help you track another important metric; leads. Learn more about the 5 numbers you should track every month inside your business.

Getting Started With Dubsado

Having a customer relationship management tool at the beginning of your service based business is one of the best things you can do.

You will save time, set your business up for success, get organized right out of the gate, and create an experience worth talking about!

To get started with Dubsado, sign up here and save 20% off your first month or year. A CRM platform is the #1 tool for service based businesses to start, to grow, and to sustain!

I'm Amy Schmidt

Hi there!

I'm a small business cheerleader, strategist, and course creator who loves seeing others earn income in unconventional ways. I started a cleaning business in college and have side hustled since, selling my latest part-time business for $151,000.

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