Systems for Creatives with Amy Pearson

EP 12: Set these three automations and watch your leads turn into bookings while you sip your first coffee

• Amy Pearson • Season 2 • Episode 12

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Leads shouldn’t have to wait while your coffee brews. We break down three simple CRM upgrades that turn curiosity into booked clients with less stress and more consistency: instant lead replies that build trust, automatic follow-ups that respect busy lives, and ready-to-book proposals that collapse the gap between “great call” and “paid.”

First, we show how an instant reply does more than say “got it.” It sets expectations, adds warmth, and shares a helpful resource that answers early questions—think a short intro video, a clear process overview, a couple of targeted FAQs, and testimonials that speak to common objections. When crafted in your own voice and sent immediately, that message keeps prospects engaged instead of drifting to another vendor.

From there, we tackle the silence that follows a sent proposal. Most prospects aren’t ghosting; they’re interrupted. A short, respectful follow-up sequence—one-day check-in, a midweek reminder with benefits, and a final nudge with a simple choice—brings momentum back without feeling pushy. We talk tone, timing, and why templates matter, plus ways to personalize without creating more work.

Finally, we dig into proposal templates that sell outcomes, not just deliverables. By connecting your proposal to contract and invoice inside Dubsado or HoneyBook, clients can choose a package, sign, and pay in minutes. We cover what to include (process, proof, clear scope, FAQs), how to keep it on-brand, and why speed plus clarity wins. The payoff is real: fewer delays, cleaner handoffs, and a client experience that feels premium from the first touch to the signed agreement.

If you’re ready to stop copy-pasting and start booking with ease, subscribe, share this with a friend who needs systems, and leave a quick review. 

Want hands-on help? I have limited Done For You CRM setup spots—grab your discovery call using the link below and let’s build the automations that work while you rest.

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: amyspearson_


SPEAKER_00:

I'm super excited to share this podcast episode with you today. This is something that came up during a discovery call this week, and honestly, it's something that was lacking in my business in the beginning, and I struggled with it quite a bit. So I wanted to share it with you because it's kind of been on my heart. And I actually took some action in my own business after the discovery call because of the things we talked about. So I think this is a valuable episode, and I hope you are going to be taking notes. So if you've ever wished your business could start working for you before you even had your first cup of coffee, because I don't know if you're like me, but I definitely don't want to consider anything that involves thinking or listening or analyzing before the first cup of coffee. And God forbid someone should actually want to have a conversation with me. So today I'm sharing three quick wins you can set up in your CRM that will instantly save you hours and help you stop stressing about every new lead that comes in. These are simple, practical tweaks that make your business feel smoother right away. And not six months from now, it doesn't require a full done-for-you setup. Although I'd love to do that for you, you can implement this yourself pretty quickly. In case you're new here, I'm Amy Pearson, a certified Dub Sato specialist and honeybook educator. And I help creative entrepreneurs like you work less, make more, and wow their clients with systems that actually fit their life. Listen. I know what it's like to feel glued to your inbox, constantly copy-pasting the same responses and worrying you're dropping the ball with potential clients. That's exactly why I started Done For You CRM setups. Because you don't have to be chained to your computer just to run a professional business. So let's get into what I wanted to talk about today. The very first quick win that I love, and I think if you've been around a minute, you've heard me talk about it, it's the instant lead reply. Now, why do I love instant lead replies? Because when someone sends an inquiry through your lead capture form on your website or by booking a discovery call with you, they don't have to wonder if you got their message. And believe me, I filled out a lot of these forms on websites and it feels like the people don't care. They're not interested in working with you. Obviously, they're too busy. You move on and you fill out another lead capture form. Maybe you go check out another person that does what you're looking to get help with. And honestly, that person that you filled out the first lead capture form for might have been the best fit. They just didn't get back to you fast enough. And what I love about setting up an instant reply is it's a super quick and easy thing to set up that makes a huge difference in your business. It gets back to potential clients really quickly with a response that you thought through at one point when you wrote it. You didn't have to write it right then. And I'm gonna talk about how you could do this if you wanted to send a customized response and still do it faster. But I honestly think the biggest bang for your buck is to set it up and just let it go. Let it send that automatic response. You can always respond to their inquiry later with a custom email or a video or something else that has more thought into it. You can even acknowledge that it is an automated response and let them know when you're gonna get back in touch with them, which I'm always a big fan of doing that. Just make sure you actually get back to them in the amount of time that you say you're gonna get back to them and not a lot after that. Because then you're breaking down the trust factor, right? You're not building the trust, which is what this automatic inquiry response should do. It should help you build the trust. It should also let them know that you're thankful for their inquiry and you should share something that builds the relationship, tells them more about what you do and how you work. And there's a lot of different options for this. I'm gonna go into more depth in this in a future podcast episode. But I like to think about things like an intro video with a really great video of you talking about yourself and how you work and your process and why you love what you do. Maybe a little backstory, maybe some FAQs. There could be testimonials involved. There's a lot of things that you can put in this piece of content that helps to educate and inform your potential client. And you definitely want this to not feel robotic. It should not feel like a robot wrote it. It should sound like you, it should be warm and personal, and it should give them an idea of what it's like to work with you. And this is a game changer, especially if you've got a lot of leads coming in. Maybe you went to a wedding show, maybe you've been using retargeting ads. There's a lot of things that could send a lot of inquiries your way, and this is just one way to quickly take the stress off. In a recent discovery call, that is something that we talked about. The person is manually following up with inquiries, and they told me just having my inquiry form send an automatic reply would be such a game changer because it takes that mental weight off of you of having to worry that you're gonna miss an inquiry or you're not gonna follow up fast enough and you're gonna miss out on business. So this is a huge game changer. I know that it impacts your ability to bring in new business because you're following up faster and putting that thought into that response and what you're sharing with them. So if you do nothing else from today's episode, I hope you do this one. My next quick win is automatic follow-ups. And here's why. Most people are busy, they are not in their inbox all the time, they're leading busy lives with families and kids and running their business. And so they might miss your proposal or your initial email and not take the next step. So this looks different. You know, the next step looks different for a lot of people. Maybe you're inviting them to book a discovery call with you or a consultation. Maybe you're going right into sending them your booking form with your packages laid out in it, much like a pricing guide. But in any case, you want to have automatic follow-ups. Because just because someone doesn't get back to you and take the next step right away, that doesn't mean they don't want to work with you or they're not interested. And I know from my own experience, it feels that way. It feels like they're snubbing their nose at you, they're not interested for whatever reason. Maybe they think I'm too expensive, maybe they just don't like me, maybe my branding's not right. There's a lot of things I've overthought all of them, believe me. But here's the truth. The real truth is they probably just saw the email, got busy doing something else. Maybe the dog was barking to be let out. That happened to me this week during a discovery call. That was really annoying. She's like a chihuahua and she barks like a smoke detector. It sounds like there's a smoke detector with a low battery, and that noise makes me crazy. I'm sure that I had like this eye twitch a call, and it was totally distracting, and it ruined my mojo, honestly, because I'm not as focused on what I wanted to talk about on that call. It was super frustrating, but that is beside the point. Things like that, they keep your client from taking the next step. And so by following up with them, you're just helping them take that next step. Don't think of it as bugging them or being a pest, which I've also thought. Think of it more like you're just helping them. And so that can look a lot like that first email after you invited them to take the next step. Could be even just like, hey, did you get this? Because spam filters are weird and sometimes things get sucked into spam folders. So just automate that email. You don't have to worry about should I, shouldn't I send it? It'll just go out a day after you sent the first step. And if it really makes you icky to do that, you can turn on the approve button. But don't do that too many times because that's a lot of extra work. And the whole point was to streamline your processes. And I wouldn't stop with just one follow-up because from what I have seen, it sometimes takes at least two or three follow-ups. You could do more, but I run out of mojo after about three. Just put those follow-up emails, write them out, ask ChatGPT to help you create a series of emails to follow up, tell it what your process is and what the next steps should be, and it will help you at least not start from a blank slate. And if you need to get a little more direct with people, you can have it do that too. But just write the dang emails, don't overthink it, and then automate them and see what happens. The most amazing thing is all of those follow-ups will happen. The people that get the emails will assume you wrote them, as long as you keep them in your voice and sounding like you and not like a robot. Do you sense a theme here? But you'll get responses, people will respond. And a lot of times, what I get when those emails go out is oh my gosh, I totally forgot. I meant to do X. And then they do it, and you have a booked client or a client that's at least moving through the booking process. Quick win number three is ready to book proposals. Why is this so important? And why do I consider this to be one of a time savers? Because if you have to take time to build that proposal after the discovery call, are you gonna be really excited about booking a client? And it's gonna take more time to get it to the client. Maybe they were really excited about working with you after the discovery call. The doorbell rings and they have to go sign for a package, and the kids have to be picked up from school, and then it's dinner time and they have to make dinner. Then they get back to the proposal that finally showed up while they were out carpooling or I don't know where. And they are a little less enthused. They don't exactly remember why they were excited about working with you at that point, and so you've lost a little of the momentum. But also, if you have to recreate that proposal every single time, you might miss important things that are really gonna showcase why someone should work with you or why the amount that you're charging is totally worth it for them to get the end result that you're giving them. You might forget to put in testimonials because you're busy and who looks at testimonials anyway? And you might just rush job the thing to get it sent out and not really put the kind of thought into it that you would do if you sat down in a block of time that you dedicated to creating a proposal template that sells your services and showcases your work and tells them exactly why they should work with you now and maybe even answers questions and has some social proof in there. I'm gonna do another podcast on this later, but there are things that I think you should put in a proposal to help sell your services. And if you sit down and create this beautiful proposal template one time, you can send out your proposals in minutes instead of hours. And shameless plug there. With Honeybook and Dub Sato, you can also include a contract and an invoice and have that contract auto-populate with all the clients' information and the packages that they chose when they completed their proposal with you. So that's another huge time saver. But in the end, the end result is that when you have a proposal template put together, instead of scrambling to hurry up and send it after you get done with your discovery call and move on to whatever else you need to do, you just tweak a few things, write a custom message maybe, and hit send. And your client signs and pays in minutes. That is a huge game changer. These little tweaks that I talked about today might seem small, but together they create the breathing space in your day and a more polished experience for your clients. And the best part, once you set them up, they keep working for you 24-7, even before that first cup of coffee has been drunk in the morning. So if you're tired of copy and paste and ready for your business to actually run itself, this is exactly what I do inside of my Done For You DevSado setups. You don't need to be techie or spend weeks figuring it all out on your own by googling things or YouTubing things. I map it out and build it and hand it back to you ready to go. So here's the thing. I only have two done for you spots left in 2025 at current pricing. So if you want to start the new year with your systems already working for you, head to my website, amysgould.com backslash book dash a dash call and grab your discovery call spot today. I can't wait to work with you and help you put these systems in place in your business so that you can stop spending all your time worrying about if you should follow up on a proposal or not, or worrying that you're gonna miss a lead or not follow up fast enough. You'll have these kinds of systems built in your business that will run things for you and get rid of all of the mental clutter. Until next week, have an awesome day, and I'll see you next time.