Systems for Creatives with Amy Gould

EP 4: Unlock the Full Potential of Your Creative Business with a CRM

• Amy Gould • Season 1 • Episode 4

Share episode

Send us a text

Ready to revolutionize how you manage your creative business? This episode promises to help you find the perfect moment for integrating a CRM into your business, even if you're just starting out.

Discover why adopting a CRM early can be a game-changer, streamlining client management and preventing future chaos. We'll walk you through what a CRM is, its pivotal role in consolidating client information, managing online contracts, proposals, and payments, and automating key tasks like follow-ups and appointment bookings. We also contrast the initial scrappiness of spreadsheets and scattered tools with the seamless efficiency a CRM provides as your clientele expands. Plus, we'll offer tips on how to choose the right CRM by exploring options like Dubsado, HoneyBook, and Moxie, complete with free trials.

In the second part of our episode, we delve into the transformative benefits a CRM can bring to your business. Learn how these powerful systems reduce errors, enhance efficiency, and improve client experiences by automating workflows and ensuring consistent service delivery. We share valuable insights on managing and nurturing client relationships through automated communication and data tracking, which not only saves time but also provides the scalability needed for business growth. To top it off, we'll introduce a mini-course designed to guide you through essential lead management processes applicable to any CRM, helping you master the tools to elevate your business operations. Don’t miss out on this episode packed with practical advice and strategies to take your creative business to the next level!

Resources Mentioned in the Episode
Systems Strategy Session with Amy

Leads Magic Mini-Course

Done for You Dubsado Set-up

Stay in Touch with Us

Book a Free 15 Minute Discovery Call to Learn How I Can Help You Work Less, Make More & WOW Clients: www.amysgould.com/book-a-call

Website: www.amysgould.com

Watch me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SystemsforCreatives

Share your take-aways by email: amy@amysgould.com

Connect with us on Instagram: amysgould_


Speaker 1:

One thing that I get asked all the time about CRMs and Dubsado or HoneyBook is I'm just getting started in my business. When is a good time to add a CRM in my creative business? Should I wait until I've got all my ducks in a row? Maybe I should hold off for a couple of years until I exceed? You know what I can manage with spreadsheets and things like that. Well, I've got a few thoughts for you and I'd like to share them today to help you decide if now is a good time to add a CRM in your business or not. Let's dive into it. So when is a good time to add a CRM in your creative business? It? So when is a good time to add a CRM in your creative business? Ultimately, it's entirely up to you, but from my experience, it's easier to add a CRM earlier on in your business than to wait until you actually have the need for it, and I'll get into why later on in this episode.

Speaker 1:

But I want to talk about what is a CRM in the first place, because maybe, if you haven't been around, you might not have heard about it. I don't want to go off just assuming you understand what a CRM is. So a CRM is a client relationship management tool, and I'm sure you're like, okay, amy, that really helps me out. But a CRM basically helps you collect all of your client information, like their address and their phone number, details about their project and things like that. It lets you sign contracts. You can do it all online, and then it also allows you to send proposals where clients can choose packages and then approve the proposal and pay the invoice all in one swoop, which I like to call get paid in five minutes, because it really is that simple, especially with the new payment options in Dubsado. I really think it's a lot faster and more efficient, even than it was before. So you can do all of that. But you can also automate your follow-ups with clients. You can send reminder emails for appointments. You can book appointments, by the way. Just a lot of things that allow you to manage clients with a whole lot less hands-on work.

Speaker 1:

I know a lot of people when they first start off in business, they use a spreadsheet, their calendar. They might use something like DocuSign to sign contracts. Maybe they're accepting payment using Stripe or Square. Possibly there's some Google Forms involved. There's a lot of moving parts all over the place and what I've seen is, yes, that does work in the beginning and, hey, you know, when you're first starting out, being scrappy and going with like the cheapest options really is helpful.

Speaker 1:

But as you get more clients, it really starts to feel like you're chasing your tail and you're completely overwhelmed really starts to feel like you're chasing your tail and you're completely overwhelmed. It is so frustrating to be like, okay, where is this piece of information? Is it on my phone? Is it in a Google Drive folder? Is it in a spreadsheet? Which spreadsheet is it in? And then also keeping track of when you've sent things to people and when you haven't, where they're at in your client experience, feeling like you're just constantly worried that you're going to drop balls. That's a lot of things that a CRM can take off your plate for you.

Speaker 1:

We've covered, really, what a CRM is, and then what you need to decide is which CRM is the right one for you. So that is the bigger piece of this, but before we dive into that, I do want to talk about when you should add a CRM to your business. It might seem like it's a better deal to wait until you have more clients and you really need it, but I have found that when people start off their journey early on with a CRM, maybe they're not using all the bells and whistles that they're paying for off the bat. In fact, I encourage my clients to start off with maybe just a lead capture form or booking a consultation call and an automated lead sequence kind of nurturing them along the way and providing more information sequence kind of nurturing them along the way and providing more information as well, as then, you know, building that proposal and moving on throughout your process and adding more later. But that big piece is the lead magic like that I like to call it. And the cool thing is I've actually got a mini course that you can grab with that walks you through all of the pieces that I think are essential in a leads management process inside of a CRM. And the nice thing is it's not really even written for one type of CRM over another. You could take these strategies that I talk about in this mini course and add them into any CRM really and get sort of the same results.

Speaker 1:

Now, I'm a huge fan of Dubsado, HoneyBook, also Moxie is great, but but you need to choose a CRM that is a good fit for you in your business and honestly I think the best way to do that is just to dive right into the CRM, get a free trial and poke around in there, see what you think about the feeling of the back end of it. Is it super confusing? Is it overwhelming? Do you kind of get a feel for it? And most of those CRMs do have courses that you can walk through to explain kind of how to use the software. So you shouldn't feel like you're on your own with that. But it really helps to go in and just feel like what is your feeling about it overall? Does it have the features that you need to have to run your business?

Speaker 1:

And every industry is different. They all have different needs and requirements to make their business run really well, and so you want to consider those things when you're looking at a CRM. Obviously you don't want to buy a CRM and then find out that you can't do the things you need to do with it to run your business. It's just not going to be helpful. Once you've signed up for the thing and started using it and putting all the effort into setting it up, those things are just going to be very frustrating. So take the time up front and look into your CRM and what you need it to do. So some of those things might not be important and some of them may be critical for running your business, and that's something to keep in mind when you are considering a CRM.

Speaker 1:

So if you have a paper and pencil handy, I would take a few notes here and just jot down what the things are that you need to be able to do with your clients. Do you need to be able to book recurring appointments? Do you need to have HIPAA compliant software? Do you need to have other protections on your client information? Do you need to have other protections on your client information? All of those things are important to consider when you are trying to pick a CRM.

Speaker 1:

Aside from that, what other tools does it have? What does it let you do? How many steps can you eliminate or automate using the automation inside of your CRM? Does it have all the bells and whistles that you really want to have? Can you accept payments? Does it use your payment processor? Better yet, does it integrate with your QuickBooks or Xero or anything like that? The more of your tools that you can connect with your CRM, the more efficient things are going to be, the less opportunity for things to break down you're going to have and, overall, the more smooth of a client experience you can create with the software.

Speaker 1:

So those are a few things that I like to talk about when discussing CRMs and how to choose one in your business. If you'd like to dive into that in more detail, you can book a system strategy session with me and I'd be happy to help you choose a CRM or any other tech tool for your business. We can go through your tech stack and look for opportunities to streamline it or help you identify which tools might be a better fit for where your business is growing. And actually, while I'm thinking about that, something else to consider when you're choosing a CRM you really want to think about where your business is headed. So it would really stink if you set up a whole CRM and your workflows and things like that and then you ended up moving in a whole other direction and your CRM really couldn't go there with you. So now you've got to export all of your clients out of your CRM. You've got to recreate everything that you built inside of one CRM to move it over to another, and that all takes extra time and money and man hours. So take a look ahead, think about where your business is going and what you kind of foresee in the future.

Speaker 1:

Now, I know none of us has a crystal ball and sometimes things end up changing and pivoting in a way we never expected, and that's totally fine. Most CRMs have the flexibility to be able to pivot like that and manage other things, the one caveat being, if you chose a CRM that is specific to an industry and then you totally change to another industry that is not even relevant to what that CRM does. For instance, if you were a wedding event planner and you went with a software for wedding planners and then decided to become a photographer, that software might not work for you and your business and where it's going. So just something to keep in mind when choosing your softwares. Now let's talk about how a CRM can really help you with your business. I think I talked about some of those things early on in this episode, but I want to go into it in more detail.

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of people get really overwhelmed when they aren't using a CRM, because they're trying to keep track of all the pieces inside their brain or on a notebook a bunch of sticky notes, a spreadsheet, all the things, and I think the biggest benefit of using a CRM in your business is that everything is in one place. All the information gets put into the system by clients. Obviously, you do have the opportunity to enter things yourself, but there's a lot less room for error if they are the ones with the information and they're putting it in the system, versus if you are collecting their information and then manually typing it into your system. That's an opportunity for typos and other errors. So having that CRM and the software collect that information for you and keep it all in one spot Huge win. I think that's the biggest win there that I can think of.

Speaker 1:

Additionally, you have way more understanding of your processes after building out automation in a CRM, and the reason for that is you walk through every part of your process, or at least that's what I do when I work with my clients to build their workflows. We start at the very beginning and we walk through every step of the process and we look for opportunities to improve that process. How can we give the person that's inquiring in the very beginning more information so they have what they need to know ahead of maybe a consultation or getting a quote to make that informed buying decision and then, as you move through the process of mapping that all out and building it inside of your CRM, it really gives you so much more understanding of how you're going to take care of those clients, instead of just winging it and doing it differently Every time you work with someone. You'll know okay, we did this, now it's time to book a consultation. Next up is making a quote or whatever the next thing is, and so that gives you a lot of clarity and confidence when you're on calls with clients, because you can very clearly articulate how they need to move forward to work with you, what that's going to look like, what your process will be to work with them. All of those things will be clearly defined, because you've had to build them into a system and tell the system okay, here's what happens next.

Speaker 1:

So what I've heard from my clients who have worked for me, right after even the workflow strategy session most of them say I have so much more clarity on my processes now than I did before. I hired you CRMs, and I'm not going to lie. It's a huge benefit of working with me, having someone to bounce ideas off of and to kind of lead you and guide you into improving that client experience is super helpful, and I'm very into building an incredible client experience. Another thing that I really love about using a CRM is that it really helps you to manage and nurture your client relationships by making sure that none of the communication gets lost and that something important doesn't get forgotten about. So, for instance, one of my clients was a wedding photographer and we were able to build in a whole series of emails that got sent to the brides, starting, I think, maybe six weeks ahead of the wedding, reminding them how to get ready for their wedding day or important things to pack for their day of wedding, things to keep in the getting ready area, like wedding rings and flowers and shoes and things like that. And all of that led to a much more high-end client experience. And I know a lot of people say to me Amy, I'm really worried it's going to sound automated and robotic and not at all like that boutique client experience that I want my clients to have.

Speaker 1:

And one of the best things that I've heard recently when someone was talking about this is what happens when you go to the spa, if you really think about it. You walk in the door and there's someone there to greet you and they're smiling and they give you a robe to change into and then, when you come out of changing, they ask if you'd like something to drink and take you back to your room. There's beautiful music playing, there's a nice aroma in the air of some kind of essential oils. All of that stuff is probably laid out in a checklist somewhere that employees are trained to follow. And because you have the same things happen every time, you have an incredible client experience. But if you think about it, what if you brought your friend with you to the spa and you were going on about how awesome the client experience is at this place and then the person didn't give you the bottle of water or something else was off about the client experience? You'd be apologizing to your friend and telling them it's not at all like it normally is. Here's what usually happens when I come to the spa.

Speaker 1:

So having the automation in place in your business that does those steps for you really helps ensure that those things happen automatically and you can create that boutique client experience in your forms and your emails. That really brings your personality and your special touch to the emails so they don't sound robotic. The other thing that's pretty awesome about CRMs is they really give you more bandwidth so you can scale your business. They allow you to punch out at the end of the day and not be worried about checking your phone because you might miss following up with a lead and because you have all that additional bandwidth. It lets you take on more clients with less hassle and I think that's a huge win for having that CRM in place early on in your business. Think that's a huge win for having that CRM in place early on in your business. They also track things like lead sources, project statuses, tags, so you can see what types of projects clients are booking with you. Some of them also track income and expense categories and things like that. All of those things will help you make more informed decisions when it comes to marketing or managing your income and budget. So I know adding a CRM in your business can feel like a big step, especially if you're just getting started in business, but the long-term benefits, such as saving time, reducing stress and creating better client relationships, make it totally worth the investment.

Speaker 1:

Next week, we'll dive into how to automate your onboarding process to wow your clients without adding more to your plate. So make sure you stay tuned for next week's episode and thank you so much for tuning in. Remember to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you wouldn't mind taking a few minutes to leave a review, it would be awesome to hear from you, or just drop me an email and tell me your biggest takeaway from this episode. Thanks so much and until next week.