Now it’s time to welcome them into your business, get contracts signed and invoices paid.

This is where it often gets messy. A lot of bootstrapping entrepreneurs end up with some kind of sellotaped together free solution in the beginning so that they can run their business with the fewest expenses possible, but often that just means you’re spending time instead of money.

Let’s say you book a new client and you then have to send them an email to confirm all the details. You need to create a new contract in one system, create an invoice in another, wait for them to sign the contract before paying the invoice so that you’re legally covered…

Then you might need to send them a receipt, and then some kind of questionnaire to get the information you need to start working with them. Oh and then you need them to book in their first call as a signed up client with you – so that’s another email.

Tired yet?

Not only is it super helpful and time-saving for you to have some type of CRM (client relationship management) system set up in your business, it can also go a long way to project your professionalism to the client and make them love you even more.

I have tried so many different setups but my favourite is Dubsado.

I have honestly cried tears of joy over Dubsado!

Here’s what my current customer on-boarding process looks like using Dubsado:

1. Client visits my Work With Me page and decided to book a call.
2. Client books a call using Dubsado’s scheduling system (which is saving me the cash I was spending on Acuity.)
3. Client gets automated reminder emails 1day and 1 hour before our call.
4. We get on a call and have an awesome time strategising for their business.
5. I send them one email with a link to a Proposal for the package we decided on.

This is where the magic happens!

6. They accept their proposal and are immediately presented with their contract.

7. They sign their contract and are immediately presented with their invoice.

8. On their invoice, they can either choose to pay in full or pay the first instalment of a payment plan. (If they are on a payment plan, they will get automated reminder emails for each of their payments.)

9. Success! They are sent a receipt and an official welcome email with a link to an on-boarding questionnaire. For my coaching clients, this has some more in-depth questions about their business, and for Facebook Ads clients, this includes space for them to provide login credentials for any software they might be using in their funnel.

10. When they submit this intake questionnaire, they are sent an email with the details on how to book their first strategy call with me.

11. After this, they are sent an automated check-in email and a request for a testimonial a few months into our work together, and a final feedback and renewal form at the end of their package.

In that entire process, the only thing I did manually was to send them the link to the proposal, which was already set up as a template within Dubsado, with a pre-written email as well. I nearly always tweak the content to make it more personal, but otherwise, the entire process is automated from start to finish.

If I was creating every proposal, every invoice, every email manually – that process would easily take me 2hrs. It DID use to take me 2hrs. At once point, I even lost a client because it took me a whole week to send her the details on how to pay me because I was so overwhelmed and busy.

That entire process took me less than a day to set up and now it’s done! I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s nearly always worth the effort to systematise and automate where you can because it will save you so much time in the long run.

Of course, I’m a huge fan of Dubsado, and you can sign up for a free trial here.