House of 334 is a women-led, minority owned, boutique design agency based in Los Angeles, CA, specializing in branding, web design and copywriting for service based businesses, membership driven organizations and nonprofits.
Disclosure: We only recommend products that we use and truly love ourselves. All opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, but we may earn a small commission.
Between all the aspects of running our small business, plus family life, serving our community, maintaining our households and attempting to have a social life every now and then…we aren’t just regular busy, we’re busy busy. As you can imagine, our to-do lists can get quite extensive. If you’re reading this, we’re certain you can relate.
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the client management responsibilities of running a business? As creative entrepreneurs, sometimes we just want to make pretty things. But in reality, most of us spend just as much time…if not more…handling leads, developing proposals, sending contracts, scanning and uploading documents, generating invoices and requesting payments. Listing it all out is tiring in and of itself.
So you can imagine how pumped we get when we come across any resource that helps us save time and find some balance.
And if you know anything about us, you know we love to share small business resources to help you level up too! You may have heard us mention Dubsado before, but in honor of us celebrating one full year since we signed up, we’re going to dig a little deeper into how this amazing business management platform has literally changed our lives as entrepreneurs.
Every booked client starts as a lead. We love getting leads, but at the start of our entrepreneurial journey, it was tough to manage all of that information. Have you ever tried to keep track of leads between email and spreadsheets? With everything else we’ve got going on as small business owners, it’s nearly impossible. But Dubsado allows you to input all the necessary information for each lead, categorize them in a way that makes sense for your business, and create automated workflows so no one ever slips through the cracks. You can also set up lead capture forms which can be embedded into your website or sent via direct link to save yourself even more time.
Speaking of forms, Dubsado has been a lifesaver for us. There are lots of templates available in Dubsado for you to use. Contracts, lead captures, proposals, checklists…you name it! And the best part is that you can customize them to fit your specific needs. Want to add or eliminate some sections? Go for it. Want to change some verbiage? Sure thing. Want to style the form with your brand’s colors, logo and imagery? No problem. Want your clients to be able to upload files? Have at it. And with Dubsado, there is no more back and forth with proposals, contracts and invoices between you and your clients. You can set up your proposals so that clients can make their service or product selections, sign the contract with an e-signature, and pay the invoice all within that same form.
We’ll say it again in case you missed it…you can set up your proposals so that clients can make their service or product selections, sign the contract with an e-signature, and pay the invoice all within that SAME FORM. How is that possible, you ask? Well, Dubsado has integrations with Stripe, PayPal and Square. So once you link up your preferred method of payment, you’re all set.
We absolutely, positively love being able to manage our finances right inside of Dubsado. There are some really cool reports that you can run to analyze business operations. Some of our favorite reports are the charts that break down what percentage of each service is bringing in our revenue, and obviously the report that shows how much money we’ve made in any given time period! You can also easily view outstanding invoices, set financial goals and generate a profit and loss statement.
Once you have a steady flow of clients, client and project management can get really complicated. But once again, Dubsado saves the day. With Dubsado, all client forms, contracts, and invoices are easily accessible for you and the client. The ability to have password protected client portals makes this process much easier and makes you look super professional. Dubsado also allows for syncing to iCal, Google Calendar or Outlook, and for setting up automated workflows.
Oh, automation…we love you so much. You can really automate a lot in Dubsado. But we have to specifically call out that we can easily configure Dubsado to automatically set payment schedules, generate invoices, and send reminder emails BEFORE and AFTER payments are due. That right there, friends, is what we call “priceless.”
Thinking about signing up for Dubsado yourself? If so, good call. What drew us to Dubsado in the first place is that they have a no-time-limit free trial. That’s right! Not 30 days, not two weeks — there is no set time limit. You can sign up for free and try it out for three clients. Once you’ve used it for those three clients, you can switch over to a paid plan if you wish to continue using it for more. So what are you waiting for? Use our exclusive Dubsado affiliate link to sign up for your free trial or get 20% off your first year and let us know how it transforms your business.
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