Building Custom Workflows in Dubsado (A Case Study with a Luxury Portrait Photographer)

Colie: Hey, y’all. Welcome back. I have yet another client story to share with you today. And you know I like to make sure that each one of them have something unique to bring to the podcast, because even though I kind of do the same things with all of my clients, the experience that they end up giving their clients and what we actually build together is so different, I struggle to put it into words on the blog post case studies on this podcast.

And so I just want you to keep in mind that when I chat with Zan today, her experience was very different than anybody else that I have brought to the podcast so far. So Zan, welcome to the podcast

Xan: Oh, thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be here

Colie: Well, you are unique in the fact that when you came into Systems in Session, that was not the first time that we had worked together, but you were not a previous Blueprint student or somebody that I set up a full system for in a VIP day. You came to me for a different problem that we solved together, and so that’s actually where I want to start.

Van, how did you come to hire me the first time, and can you kind of talk about the offer that we set up together in that period?

Xan: Okay. So I, I think we gotta take it, like, way back. Um, I, I initially found you through a, a local photography group here in the Bay Area that I’m part of. I think you were brought in as just, like, a speaker to talk about CRMs. I think you talked about HoneyBook, you talked about Dubsado. At that time, I actually was a HoneyBook user and, uh, yeah,

Colie: I didn’t know that

Xan: well, I mean, the irony is I then switched because of your spiel.

Um, I then switched to Dubsado and did just as much work in Dubsado as I did in HoneyBook. For the better part of li- I think I probably paid for a CRM for three, maybe even four years, without actually using it for anything. I, I think eventually I got to the point where I’d kind of like piecemeal an invoice together and send it off, but like, I wasn’t sending emails, I wasn’t using schedulers.

I wasn’t, obviously I wasn’t creating any automated emails. Like, I was n- I was paying for so much that I wasn’t using. So that is kind of the first three-plus years of my experience with CRMs Obviously having listened to you in that one little webinar that you did, and then becoming more aware of you. I mean, I don’t, I don’t think you had the podcast yet, but, like, definitely blog posts.

I hope I’m not alone in this. I definitely was the type of person where I was like, “Oh, I know all the things I should be doing.” Like, Colie talks about all this stuff that I know I could set up. I just didn’t do it. And so I got to the point, with the offer you’re talking about, I, would do…

I had these sessions called Studio Petites, which are children’s personality portraits. I would have one day a month where I would stack a bunch of sessions back to back. And I was using se- This was the other irony. I was using like 18 different things, paying for 18 different softwares that Dubsado all could do itself.

I just hadn’t put it together, so I was paying for all this other stuff. So I was using sessions to set up, for people to book. But I, I was like, “Why am I paying for this when I know that Dubsado could do this for me as well?” Especially because mine, I, I, it was once a month, it was, you know, maximum like 10 sessions.

Like, it wasn’t crazy, crazy volume. So I contacted Colie and I said, “Obviously, I know you from this webinar. I’ve been following you forever. I would love to hire you just to cr- like, create this one workflow. That’s what I need. I have no idea how flows work. Help me create this one workflow.” So I brought you on to create the scheduler, and then all of the corresponding emails that I was sending out manually at the time, to prep my clients, tell them what to wear, how to talk to your kids before the session, what to expect at the session.

“Hey, your session’s coming up. Great, your session was awesome. Now what to expect.” I was doing all of those emails, not as nicely packaged as before, but again, I was doing that manually, which was… And I knew I didn’t have to. So I brought you on to help me basically create a workflow, which I’d never done before in Dubsado, to automate that whole thing start to finish

Colie: And the irony is that if you guys are listening to her talk right now and you’re like, “Oh, she brought me on as a team member to like build out this whole offer,” I think she like missed the part that she should emphasize for you. She hired me for a strategy and implementation call. So I just wanna emphasize the fact that I built all of that for her in a single hour.

Xan: Well, I, I

Colie: makes it sound more y- extensive than it was. I just, I wanna make sure that everybody realizes, ’cause the funny part, Zan, is that this year alone, people hired me to do that two other times. Like literally they’re like, “I’m doing these brand mini sessions,” or, “I’m doing these children’s mini sessions, and I just can’t figure it out.

Can I just hire you to do it?” And I, I say, “Yeah.” I say, “You know, you can hire me for an implementation hour.” And the last person that did it was like, “Wait, I’m sorry, like, like it’ll just take one hour?” I’m like, “Yeah, it’ll just take one hour if you’re there with me and I can ask you the questions as I build it.”

I was like, “And you know, in the case that I actually can’t build it in an hour, depending on what we get to, you can either pay me for another hour or I will just like finish it.” Because in most cases, if I can’t do it in the hour, it’s like an extra 10 minutes. Like we’re not talking about me needing extra days or anything like that.

So I just wanted to make sure that I put that out there. Now, you eventually joined Systems in Session, which took us 60 full days to build what you’re offering now. But like, I also feel like that is just… It, it’s, it is a real comparison when you think about the fact that you were selling these sessions one day a month, you paid for Dubsado and/or HoneyBook for three and a half years, oh my God, and you weren’t actually using it.

So then you were paying for Session because you were like, “This is just easier to use. Let me just continue to do this.” But Session did have features that it couldn’t do. I mean, yes, it is a great booking software, but like things on the other end of the Session you weren’t doing, you were doing them manually because Session wasn’t capable of doing those things for you.

Xan: Yeah, and I, I mean, I really, I really think i- if I think of, like, the sequence of, of, of events, I created these, these, uh, uh, mini event days, and obviously the beginning I was only booking a few, so it was really easy for me to patch it together and do things manually. As they started to grow and build and I was booking them out more, I knew Dubsado had features I could use, but I’m like, “I don’t have time to field- figure this out.

Here’s Sessions. This is kind of more drag and drop, ready to go.” So I started using that. But then I was like I was basically, like, having my CRM information, my clients’ information in two different places, and it just got really messy. And I knew that Dubsado was gonna have some limitations that Sessions didn’t have, but for the most part, I was like, “I’m willing to make those concessions so that everything is cleaner and streamlined and in one place.

I just need Colie to hold my hand to, like, actually set it up.” Because I knew I’m a confident… I’m a competent person. I knew I could do it, I just… It was, like, s- it just seemed like such a daunting task to start. And the irony is now, like, when I think about everything I’ve actually built since our time and system and Sessions, I’m like, “I can do it.

Like, I… This is not hard.” It was just that first jump in seemed so daunting that I needed you literally for an hour to hold my hand

Colie: But Zan, I just, I literally love the fact that you opened your mouth and you said all of that, because there is no shortage of times when I hear people tell me, “No, no, I knew what I needed to do,” and usually what follows that is, “I just didn’t have time to do it.” But then if I came to your house and I basically sent your husband, your partner, whatever, whoever else lives in your house with you, if I literally gave you a day and I said, “This is your day to build it,” most people would still be like, “Okay, maybe it wasn’t the time.”

Like, now you’ve given me the time and, like, I still can’t start because starting feels so daunting. And I mean, I really try on my podcast and on the blog post that you mentioned, I really do try to give people the motivation to start because I do feel like it’s infectious. Like, once you start, you get obsessed with all of the things that you can do.

And I find that in Systems in Session, that’s actually what happens to a lot of you. Like, that first week or two is really awkward because you have all of these ideas. You know that I’m gonna hold your hand and help you make it better, but you still have, like, a lot of anxiety about, “But are we really gonna, like, do it?

Like, I’ve been trying to do it for so long. Is it really gonna get done?” And for most of you, it’s like one to two weeks, and then you guys are off to the races. I mean, guys, I have a couple of clients where if I don’t hear from them that day, I get a little worried. Zan’s one of those people. Once she started going, she was sending me support tickets like every day.

Like, every day she had questions. It was fantastic. And I’m, I’m putting you on the spot, Zan, because I do feel like sometimes I get people inside of the offer that are actually scared to use the resources that they’re paying for. And I mean, you know this for a fact. It’s one of the reasons that I started making everybody schedule their first four calls.

People felt guilty about scheduling a call to ask me the question because they thought they should be able to figure it out on their own. And I’m like, “Baby girl, this is what you paid me for. Like, let’s get on a call. I can explain it to you in two minutes versus the three hours that you are gonna spend spiraling trying to figure it out on your own, and then you can just move on to the next thing.”

Xan: Well, it’s funny with the, the, the ticket system. I don’t know why, but I struggled with that so hard the first week or two. It just, it- all I wanted to do was just reply to the, reply to an email or just, like, send you a message, and you’re just like, “Submit a ticket.” And I’m like, I d- ugh, I don’t understand.

And then as soon as I was like, “Oh, no, this make- I get it now,” I literally was like, “Ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket.” I mean, I liter- it was like I’d send you one, and then I’d be like, “Wait, hold on. Here’s another one.” And I’m like, your log, I mean, it was that week that you were out of town.

I’m like, “You’re gonna come back, and you’re gonna have 50,000 support tickets from me.” And half of them were, “Ignore that last one. I fixed it.” Or, like, “Wait, hold on. Here’s something new. Wait.” And so I, I was a little trigger-happy with my tickets, and then I, and then I learned to, like, give it a minute. Like, try it yourself, and maybe you don’t need to bug Colie with a ticket.

So I got a little more confident, and I got a little more self-sufficient. I wasn’t just like, “Colie, help. Colie, help. Colie, help.”

Colie: But even if you had, it was okay. And you mentioned that, and it’s funny that you say that because I’m currently working with a pet photographer from Australia. Hi, if you’re listening. But, uh, she sent me four support tickets yesterday before her call, ’cause of course she’s in Australia. So I allowed her, I know that sounds really crappy, guys, but I schedule my calls with her at 4:00 PM my time, which I don’t usually work that late, but it’s like the perfect time to meet somebody from that side of the world.

And so she submitted four support tickets, and I’ve learned my lesson from you and a couple of other people. So when you send them that close, I actually start with the last one and just look at them before I answer the first one, because quite often there is a ticket in there that’s like, “Oh, never mind, I figured this out.”

Xan: Yeah.

Colie: So I– you learned something, but I also learned something, Zan. I start from the closest one just to see if you figured it out on your own, and then I go back to your first support ticket and I start, you know, answering you, sending you Loom videos. ‘Cause one time I, I wasn’t doing that yet, and they had this big question, right?

So I go and I’m– I think the Loom video to explain it was like 12 minutes. And then I sent it, and then I went to the next ticket, and it was a different question. I answered that one, and then I sent it. But that third ticket was like, “Oh my gosh, I figured it out. Look.” And I was like, “Oh, I just wasted 12 minutes of my life explaining something.”

So then I sent it and I’m like, “Hey, I answered it in the previous video, but really great job on figuring it out on your own. Um, I’m so proud of you. Gold star for the day.” So I mean, you know, that’s, that’s one of my little stories of what I learn with working with all of you guys.

Xan: Well, and I think, I think something else to note, which I’m sure I’m not alone in this, is that, and I think I even one day sent you a screen video of my phone showing you that I had listened and played every single podcast. I mean, I have, I, I… There was someone else on your podcast recently who was talking about, um, who you actually like subscribe to podcasts.

You are one of a few. Like, I don’t subscribe to a ton, but so I always get alerted when you have a new episode. I, I legit think I have listened to every single podcast episode you’ve ever made. I’ve obviously read a lot of your blog posts. But the irony is everything that we did in System In Sessions, I, I wouldn’t say like I knew exactly how to do.

There was definitely a learning curve, but I knew about them. I knew about, like, there wa- there weren’t features or v- or aspects of Dubsado or things that Dubsado did that I was not aware of because I had listened to all of your episodes. And I feel like you’ve, you’ve touched on this before, where you’ve said everything that we do in System In Sessions you could, you could probably patch together and figure out on your own via blog posts and, and past episodes, and I think that’s so true.

But I feel like why hadn’t I done it before? Like, I knew everything that I could do and should do, but I hadn’t actually done it. And I knew I h- I, I wanna do System In Session because I wanted to have that, that chunk of time that I dedicated where it’s like, “This is just the two months that I am buckling down and doing this because it’s going to make my life so much better.

It’s going to make my clients’ experience that much better.” And I knew if I didn’t have you to push me and to, like, be like, “Hello, where is your next, you know, where’s your asset?” That I just, I would continue to not do it. So thank you

Colie: You’re welcome. Thank you for joining me in Systems in Session. I mean, so we kinda talked about how we got together the first time, you know, all of the things, how you knew all of the things. So when you jumped into Systems in Session, you already said support tickets were, you know, a little bit of a struggle.

But I felt like you were one of those people who really took advantage of your weekly call, and then beyond the four weeks. You were like, “Uh, Colie, yeah, I need, I need a call next week.” I mean, you… I didn’t even make you schedule the extra ones. I was just like, “Okay, Zan, let’s just schedule your, your calls out for the next, you know, four weeks,” because you were one of those people that I could tell the fact that you had to get on a call with me really motivated you to do the things.

I mean, regardless the other things that were happening in your life, you never showed up to a call and was like, “Oh, well, Colie, you know, I’m sorry, I didn’t really do it,” unless you really couldn’t do it and you needed me to, like, show you something in order to get over the hump. But was there anything else besides…

I guess really what I’m hearing you say is accountability. Was there anything that you got inside of Systems in Session that you were surprised about that I maybe hadn’t told you that you were gonna be getting?

Xan: Ooh. I know from previous episodes of you talking to other people that have been inside with you that, a lot of what you started with, um, was reviewing your offer. Um, I, I came into Session- Systems and Sessions with a relatively new offer, but an offer that I had really worked on and dialed in.

So I- even though we did discuss it, and I remember there was one conversation where we broke down how many man hours it was gonna take me to complete my offer, and then, like, average sale, what that equaled per, like, you know, a, a per hour, amount, and you were like, “I don’t want you going any lower than that.”

And I go, “I, like, never thought about it that way.” I, I mean, clearly I was looking at, you know, yeah, I’ve got my average sale, amount, and I have… I- I’m high touch, so, like, I have a lot of, face-to-face time with my clients and a lot of, , other ways where I’m not automating. I’m choosing to not automate things, so I am actually spending more time per client, but I never really broke it down per hour.

I really kind of broke it down per job or per client, and that really changed my perspective of things, of like, yeah, I… A- and also that it, it helped me make sure that if I ever do go beyond those hours, how much that’s actually costing me. Like, that, that, h- like, that’s really, that’s really valuable, and I wasn’t viewing it that way before.

I mean, to me, and, and this is also kind of, I mean, part, part of the high-touch experience, but also just my personality, like, I will do everything and anything, and, uh, f- for my clients. And so I don’t, I don’t f- I wasn’t really in the mindset of like, “Oh, well, this is, you know, making my, you know, income per hour go down.”

I literally was just thinking about this is just what it’s gonna take to make client happy. But I think it’s important as a business owner to be thinking about both of those things at the same time. And really, like, until you made that comment to me and we tallied it all up, I really hadn’t thought about it that way

Colie: Well, it’s interesting that you bring that up because before we got started, you and I were talking about, uh, how high touch your current offer is. And the truth is, I don’t do that kind of offer math with all of my clients. I do with some, um, especially if they’re transitioning from like having one offer to the next.

I wanna make sure that your next offer is just as profitable, if not more than your previous. But like pulling out like my math skills to do all of that is not something that I do with every one of my clients. But I did that in your case because you gave me way more pushback than anybody else that I’ve ever had in Systems Session.

Well, at least up to that point. I’m actually working with a couple people right now that are in your same boat. But I don’t typically get a lot of pushback from people when I tell you to automate something. Most people are like, “Oh, that sounds great. I’m gonna save how much time?” And then they just do the automation.

And you were like, “No.” I mean, guys, she just flat out told me no, which I’m not used to hearing people tell me no that often. So when she told me no, I was like, “Hmm, okay, let’s do the math.” So that’s when I pulled out, you know, “I want you to know that if you continue to do all of these things for your clients and you are not automating these things, this is how many hours I am anticipating you are gonna spend with each one of your clients.

Are you aware of that?” And then you were like, “Yes.” And then I took your ma- your, I took your, you know, your prices and I said, “Okay.” Uh, ’cause you do have a range. I mean, you are not all-inclusive. So I was really looking at your bare bottoms. Like, if someone comes in with you, they’re doing your session fee, which your session fee is higher than most, and then they’re buying your absolute lowest collection, I wanted you to tell me how much those products cost you.

And then we were looking at the number of hours that it was taking. And so we were trying to figure out, after your expenses, what are you actually making per hour? I needed to make sure for myself that that was going to be profitable for you, regardless what you thought. I needed to make sure that at the end of the day, I was not helping you build a system where in six months from now, you’re gonna come back to me and you’re gonna be upset because, you know, you’re not in the place that you thought that you would be after you did all of this work.

So I did that with you, Zan, on purpose. And after we did the math, I was like, “Okay, as long as you’re happy with this number, if someone comes in and they buy your lowest collection, we’re good. Let’s start building.” But, like, that was kind of… It was as much for me as it was for you, I’m gonna be honest.

‘Cause I just wanted to make sure that at the end of the day, that you didn’t realize later that you really are in a position where you are doing too much, and you either have to go backwards and now automate things that you didn’t wanna automate before, or you need to do, like, an immediate price increase.

Which, I mean, I’m all for raising your prices, but I wanna make sure that when we’re doing all of this work, we know where you need to be before you jump in and fully start using the systems.

Xan: Right. Yeah, yeah. No, and I, I, honestly, that was i- in- incredibly insightful. I mean, I had worked a long time on, um, on my pricing a- and, and, in changing over to a more high-touch model, um, where I’m not all-inclusive. And I really did make sure that, yes, if they came in and bought the bare bones… Bare bones, that sounds bad.

Colie: It does. But you know, I had that episode where I called it bare bones systems, so I apologize. I mean, Zan’s lowest offer is not bare bones. It is actually quite nice. But let’s just say your minimum collection. Let’s

Xan: my minimum

Colie: the words. Yeah

Xan: And, and really, like, I wanted to make sure that that was priced at a point where I wouldn’t resent my clients. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have them leave and be like, “Well, that was a waste of my time.” And I think that that is really important because before I did, uh, before, um, I changed my pricing, I did have some resentment.

Like, there were times where people just got the bare minimum, there’s the bare minimum again, the smallest package, and I had that feeling. I did feel like, “Well, gosh, I did all that work, and that’s it?” And then of course, you know, as artists, of course, we take it personally and we’re like, “They hated everything.

They

Colie: take all of them. They didn’t want all of them

Xan: Right. How could they not want all of these photos? And, you know, I- just people have different reasons, different budgets, different, different needs. And so I wanted to make sure that the, the smallest offer, still would make me walk away feeling good, and I, I, I do now, so that’s huge

Colie: That’s amazing to hear. So let’s talk about some of these things that I told you to automate that you just said no. So she already mentioned the scheduler, which again, I find very ironic because what you paid me for the first time was to set up a scheduler to make your life easier when you were booking your Studio Petites.

Then when it came time to set up the systems for your empowerment sessions, you were like, “No, I don’t wanna use a scheduler. I wanna talk to them on the phone.” And I was like, “Okay, but like what if you can’t get them on the phone? Like I just, I want you to have a scheduler as a backup.”

And you were like, “No, I wanna talk to them on the phone.” And I was like, “Okay, Zan, just to make me happy, we’re gonna create the scheduler. I don’t care if you never use it, but I need it to be done so that in the future, if you ever need a scheduler for anything, you know that it’s there, you know that you have it.”

And then you finally relented and said, “Okay.”

The 

Xan: the i- the irony, Colie, is that I have now created five other schedulers, not for the session, but for all of the individual things that happen before the session, right? So like Colie said, I talk to my prospective clients on the phone. If, if there’s anyone who wants to inquire about doing a session with me, that is the first step.

It’s a non-negotiable. We have to talk on the phone. I have to talk to them to make sure I understand what their needs are, what they’re looking for, and then what of my offerings would be the best match for their needs. A lot of times they actually don’t really know what their needs are. They have an idea of their wants, and then we kind of translate that into, their non-negotiables, right?

Like, sometimes it could be… For example, I had a woman the other day who inquired, about an empowerment session, for her daughter. And then when we got on the phone, w- after some discussion, it was revealed that actually what her immediate need was, was actually a headshot. But that down the line, she would love to book an empowerment session.

The empowerment sessions are actually a multi-step. There’s, there’s an in-home consultation and concept, session where I come to the person’s home. We go over their wardrobe, we go over vision, right? Like, there’s a lot of collaboration on it, and that usually happens about a month before the actual photo session.

Because a lot of times what we find in that consultation is that there’s gaps, right? And so we need to have extra time to purchase additional wardrobe, get the wardrobe, make sure it works, maybe send it back, buy a different one. So I really do not… I try not to schedule those two things m- m- less than a month apart.

So when she came to me and said, “This is what I really want, but I need the session to be, like, next week,” I was like, “Okay, that… I can’t provide you the service and the high-touch level of an experience if we’re rushing it. You just can’t.” So I said, “How about what we do is we get you in here for a headshot mini session, bang that out, get you an amazing headshot for your daughter to use, for her LinkedIn profile, and then when we have the time, let’s then start that process, that high-touch, nurturing process of an empowerment session.”

And so they came in. They actually booked her and her daughter. She booked one for herself as well. Came in, did a headshot session. Um, it was actually really… ‘Cause they were a referral, this is actually amazing. They were a f- a referral from someone- I’ve never personally met, but I photographed his mother.

And so he, he’s a hairstylist. This is gonna … Sorry. Let me make this make sense. So my c- my client’s hairstylist gave her my information because I photographed his mom. I’ve never met him personally. So, like, obviously I owe him some flowers. But, um, it was so, so wonderful that she came in and said, “Hey, this guy highly recommended you.

I want you to photograph my daughter.” So I photographed the two of them. That was the first time we had met. We had an incredible experience, but it was a truncated version of what my custom session is. And so when they left, they were incredibly happy, and she was like, “I can’t wait to experience what the real f- the big deal is.

Because if this is just the mini version, like, I am, I’m all in for the, for the custom.” So it was actually, like, a really great … But I never … I- if we hadn’t jumped on a call and I had identified what her actual needs and wants were, if I had just sent her a scheduler, that would have never have worked

Colie: True.

Xan: So no Colie, no scheduler.

Just kidding.

Colie: I mean, but then she admitted, guys, she’s using five of them. So I think I wanna say right now that one of the things that I personally do in my own business that maybe I don’t talk about enough is that I used Dubsado schedulers, or at least I had in the past, all the time. But I actually rar- shared them with a client.

So yes, if you were gonna book a discovery call with me, it used to be on my website, you could book that on your own. But when it came to your strategy call, when it came to other things when I was doing your setup, no. I would send you an email that was like, “Okay, we’re gonna have your VIP day on this day.

Do you wanna start at 8:00 AM, 9:00 AM, or 10:00 AM?” Like, I would give you a choice based on what time zone you were in, and then me, as a mountain, you know, trying to make sure that I’m gonna be awake and, like, functional when we’re gonna do this call. But then you would give me the information back. I would open a Dubsado scheduler, and I would schedule it like I was you.

And then you got the confirmation, and then you got the reminders. So I’m just taking this opportunity, because I feel like I don’t say this enough, and maybe my clients are the only ones that, like, hear me say that this is possible. Just because I want you to use a scheduler doesn’t mean that your client is the one that has to use it.

It could just be sitting in their project. You could use it to make sure that they get all of the information that they need in a timely manner, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re turning over control to your clients. Which honestly, I don’t think that I actually recognized, Anne, that that was actually what happens with you.

Like, you want to be in control, and I don’t say that as a negative. It’s you are controlling the experience that they’re getting. And so in a lot of cases, I also felt like you didn’t wanna give them a scheduler and make it one more thing for them to figure out. You wanted to give them the service of them telling you what would work for them, and then you provided the day and time to them without having to use technology, without having to, like, look at the calendar and compare it to yours and doing all that.

So again, it’s part of that high-touch service that you are offering all of your custom clients

Xan: Yes, exa- exactly. It’s, it, I mean, it is a control thing for sure, for one. But two, it, it, it is taking one less thing off of their plate and being like, “I’m gonna schedule this for us. This date works for, the time works for both of us. I’ve scheduled it, you’re gonna get the confirmation emails.” So yeah. So it, it also is about, providing more service for them and, and doing things more, on a personal level and, and not just being like, “Here, fill this out.

You do this. You sign up for something.” And I, I mean, as, as you know, I struggled a lot in Dubsado, emails because I really wanted to make them

Colie: design

Xan: shiny and pretty and match my aesthetic, and I feel like we actually did find a really good place for that. But I mean, y- y- you kept being like, “You can’t do that, Zan.

You can’t… Like, what you wanna do, you can’t do.” And it was like, “But I need it to look pretty.” And you’re like, “Nobody cares.” And I’m like, “I do. I care.” So yeah, there was a lot of things that, I, I mean, I’ll be honest, like there were a couple things I had to concede on, and at the end of the day I’m fine with it.

It’s okay. But, you know, I was able to bring in a, a really nice banner image for every, email that I sent. I cr- we created tables so then it’s centered, so it’s not all just like, you know, a… ‘Cause I mean, for me, I work on a big iMac, right? And so, like, when I have my Gmail open, it’s acro- it’s huge. It’s across the whole thing.

And I w- still wanted the emails to feel like it was in, in an intentionalized space that I… It was curated, right? It was a curated look in their inbox. Um, because I feel like everything else that I do with this experience is very curated. I feel like the emails should match that, they should reflect it.

So I feel like we were able, with, with the somewhat limited features in Dubsado, we were able to make it look very curated, and I’m, I’m really happy with how they turned out

Colie: Well, and I do wanna say, I mean, I love a good design. I love colors. I like people recognizing your brand. And so it is weird for people to understand that at the end of the day, I don’t care what your client experience emails look like. But ironically, I was working with you, and I’m gonna mention Jordan, because by the time this airs, Jordan’s case study will already be live.

Um, and then I also had Maurie. The three of you I was kind of working with at about the same time, and all three of you were asking me about how to design better emails. And I just thought that it was ironic that in the four or five years that I had been helping people set up Dubsado, I could count on my hand the number of times that anybody ever asked me about it, and it was usually just the font.

I’ve never actually had anybody, like, wanna center it. But, like, now that I’m thinking about it, you know, you don’t want your… You don’t want the email to go on forever on a 27-inch iMac on a Gmail, and you not know what it looks like when your client opens it. I’ve always been of the, like, camp, if you will, “Well, you can’t control that, so let it go.”

But Zan, you were like, “No, we have to figure out a

Xan: I’m not gonna let it go. Well, and I think, I think the other thing that really frustrated me was that if I was putting in a button, right, for a form to fill out or an invoice link or something, it, uh, th- it would center the button, but all the text would go on for miles. And it was like, can we just contain it? So yeah. So I, I, I, we, I really… That took a long time. Well, not a long time, but, like, that took a lot of tweaking, but, like, I’m really, really happy with, with where those are. And, and I even got a compliment on

Colie: See? Look at you

Xan: So it was all worth it. It was all worth it.

Colie: Let’s talk about proposals.

Xan: Oh gosh, okay

Colie: I know. You sh- u- usually, guys, when I say proposals, my people are all like, “Yes, that’s why I came to you. I want this beautiful proposal to sell my sessions.” And guess what, guys? Zan wanted nothing to do with a proposal. Let’s talk about that. Zan, why are you so opposed to having a proposal to sell your services?

Xan: So this is gonna sound archaic and l- just against everything that I feel like we, uh, have moved towards with automation and, just technology in general. But for me, the foundation of my relationship with my clients is personal. And the- that’s why I insist that we have a discovery call, right? Not only for me to get to know my clients and to get to know that they’re- what they’re looking for and what they need and how I can service, uh, provide service for them, but also kind of going back to that high touch thing.

It’s, I am taking care of everything for them. When I talk to them on the phone, I am explaining the process, and another aspect of why proposals are so tough for me is because a lot of times I am curating this experience for them, just for them. It’s not carbon copy. It’s not like, “Okay, um, so this is how it’s gonna go.

This is how I do things. It’s gonna go blah, blah, blah, and then that’s gonna happen, and then you get the pictures.” Right? Like, a lot of times what happens is I, I custom tailor the experience to that specific client. So on one hand, a proposal to me was like, “Well, God, I’m gonna have to like rewrite it every time.”

Like, I’m gonna have to kind of like, okay, go in there. Sure, there’ll be certain parts that can be the same, but I’m actually gonna have to manually change it. Also, for me, I actually book my sessions on the discovery call. So I talk to them about what they want, I talk to them about what I can offer them.

They decide if that’s a good fit. Um, either we book it right then, or they take some time to think about it, and then we set up a time to reconvene and say, “Hey, are we doing this or not?” What, what Colie and I decided was that in that off chance, and, and really I say off chance because it’s come up once since we created this, if someone says, “I hear what you’re saying.

I need to see it before I can decide,” we wanted to have a proposal to s- to… A, a template for me to then still tweak a little bit to send off to them. But like I said, like since we’ve created and, and, and I’ve gone through ses- Systems and Sessions, that’s only been requested of me once. So it, it still is something I am very…

I don’t plan on using often. But I will say My hangup about making it, of course, also was I needed it to be visually stunning. I needed it to match the aesthetic. It couldn’t just be, here’s a PDF or, you know, here’s this bullet point A, B, and C. And so what I really wanted to focus on was making sure that what I was sending them was gonna wow them, not just with the content, but with the presentation.

And I do feel like we got there. But it’s just summarizing what it is that we already talked about. That’s all it is

Colie: And I wanted to ask you that, not to push you, because I, I do feel like one of the things that I hear people say w- all too often is, “Oh, but my process is too custom for systems.” To which I normally respond, “Okay, everything can be templatized. Everything can be personalized before you send it. If you don’t want your clients to get all of these automated emails, we don’t have to automate them, but you should still have email templates that you can grab to customize, to personalize, so that you are not doing every single step in your client experience from scratch every single time.”

And I do feel like you are going to be the case study that I send to every single person going forward that’s like, “Well, no, my experience is so custom I can’t do it.” Because at the end of the day, you’re not really using the scheduler to do the discovery call like I told you to. That’s fine. You’re not really using the proposal process that I feel like is what everybody pays me for and what they say that they want out of their systems.

Zan

Xan: I’m sitting here going, “People are gonna be listening to this being like, ‘What did you pay her

Colie: So we’re about to get to that. Listen, guys, don’t worry, we’re getting to that. But so I just wanna make sure that when it comes to a CRM and why I particularly love Dubsado and HoneyBook over the other booking tools that you can use, like Session, which she was already using, or something like Pixieset’s Client Management, is those get you the automated booking.

It streamlines that part of your client experience. But often there is a loss of continuity for the rest of the experience, which is really what Zan ended up setting up inside of Systems in Session. And so I, I don’t wanna minimize what we did at the beginning. I do think that when it comes to using a CRM, there are really three purposes.

It centralizes all of your client information, which you already said you were tired of having your shit in multiple tools. It organizes it in a way to where if you wanna know what you’ve done with any one of your clients, you don’t have to remember. Even though you are doing phone calls and scheduling things on your own, you can still go in their project at any given time and figure out what has been done, what is currently in progress, and what you still need to do.

And then there’s the automation. And even though Zan is doing a lot inside of her client experience manually, she is also automating a lot after everything is set up. So let’s talk about that in our remaining time. So what does onboarding look like for you? Because you kind of hinted at the fact that you actually meet with your clients multiple times.

Um, but like what, what is it that your onboarding looks like? Because for someone who isn’t automating a lot, I mean, your onboarding process has three different workflows, right? I think it’s three. It might be four. I mean, it’s a lot. So what is it that we actually did inside of Systems and Session that made it worth it for you if it wasn’t a bunch of automations?

Xan: Okay. Well, so back when I joined one of your sprints, we did… I, I created a, a spreadsheet where we… I just sat down and I thought of every single time I would need to do anything related to my clients. Obviously, it was send an email, or make a phone call, or, you know, um, send a thank you card in the mail, right?

‘Cause I, I do try to do non-email related communication as well. And when I sat and created that entire thing out, I think we had come up with, like, 56 touchpoints.

Colie: I don’t think so. I think you had 80. I think you had 80. I mean, we reduced it, but I mean, Zan had more touch points than anybody in life. And so I have some people that are like, “Oh my gosh, Colie, like I have 30.” I’m like, “No, wait till you see the spreadsheet.” Because I did. I left, I left all of your things in there.

Like when people are now looking at a version of that, they get to see what you did because you gave me permission. So I mean, guys, don’t think that I’m just sharing her shit to share it. She gave me permission. But there’s one tab that’s basically like Zan’s example, and then there’s a second tab that has the space for them to do it.

And I mean, you know, you created it because you like Google Sheets. I don’t like Google Sheets. I’d rather do Airtable. And I had an Airtable version for people, but no one wanted my Airtable version. So everybody gets Zan’s version now, and it’s so pretty. It’s so colorful. It’s so on brand for me. People literally can’t believe that I didn’t make it.

But I make sure that I give you credit every single time

Xan: Yeah. Well, I, what I wanted to do is I, I, I mean, like we do in System In Sessions, we just had done this kind of in a previous step, is, you know, I was like, okay, from the moment that they inquire, like what are all the, all of the touch points that I’m gonna have with them? And so what I wanted to do is w- translate in that into workflows, where I am either, yes, sending automated emails, reminders, check-ins, whatever, but also t- creating tasks for myself.

Like, “Hey, w- write and mail that thank you note.” I, I have major ADHD. I really struggle with, um… Well, I’ll say this, like you experience, the reason why I did sign up for System In Sessions is because when I have a deadline and when I have someone r- counting on me or waiting on me or expecting something from me, I can’t not deliver.

Like, that is the motivation that I need. But if you’re just like, “Yeah, it’d be great if someday you built these sessions”, I, I’ve been saying, I’ve been paying for Dubsado for years and I never did it. But when I said, “Colie, these are the two months that we’re gonna get together and I’m gonna build this thing”, like I did…

I, I, I could not fail at that job. And 

Colie: and it was glorious. 

Xan: I didn’t. But well, and I’ll just say the irony of this is that we, we… I think I like put my deposit down for it maybe in like November, October

Colie: might, you might have been November. It

Xan: I mean, we were

Colie: fall.

Xan: it. Yeah, it was the fall and, and I was like, “Look, I- there’s stuff that I wanna have ready first before we do our work, so let’s start in February.”

And in my mind, all I was thinking about is what was happening in February, not what those two months were gonna hold once we started. Colie, I… So I have young kids, they’re in elementary school, and I have taken it upon myself to not only, uh, photograph everything at the school, but to design and create the yearbook for the elementary school.

February, uh, uh, like Mar- March… Basically, we started February 23rd, I think was our day. March and April are the most insane months of my life, not for my business, but for this personal project that I am just kicking myself every day for s- taking on. And no one asked me to do it, I volunteered.

Colie: That’s your personality, Zam. I believe it 100%.

Xan: but the irony is, is I…

You were like, “When should we start?” And I was like, “March 23rd, or February 23rd, that looks great. I don’t have anything going on.” Because all I was thinking about, I don’t have anything going on in my business, like that’s a good time for my business. So I took on this, this huge task of creating these systems while I was simultaneously, like working like 40 hours a week doing this stupid

Colie: Doing this volunteer thing at your

Xan: this volunteer project that is literally like two full-time jobs. So even with that, the fact that I had someone counting on me, that Colie was expecting things of me, I was like, “I cannot not do this. I have to get it done.” So ironically, in the busiest season of my life, I got the most done. But- I digress.

so yes, so we had created that touchpoint list of 50, 80, a million touchpoints. So I’m like, I wanna translate this now into, um, workflows where it’s either obviously gonna do things automatically, gonna remind me to do things, going to, um, you know, have, uh, checkpoints for myself or check-ins for my clients.

And, and that honestly was, I think, the most daunting thing for me because I literally, besides that one flow we had created for my Studio Petite sessions, I really hadn’t done much in flows. And I have to say, I think that ended up being my favorite part and that- my favorite thing that we created because it was so cool to be like, “Okay, yeah, so this is gonna trigger that, and that’s gonna trigger this.

And then if this doesn’t happen, that’s gonna go back to that.” And, and even though I know we’re still waiting for the conditional logic, like it, it, it really was cool to visually see all of the things that are gonna happen and, and, and what I need to do, what I need to mi- remind my clients to do, what needs to happen in the back end.

It was great to have that all in one centralized place. And as you taught me, it isn’t one workflow. It is like 18 different little workflows that then one triggers the next, and it was amazing

Colie: I mean, she didn’t have 18 guys. I mean, I think, I think in total you are running five or six for your custom offer. And then some of the additional ones that we created were, like, duplicates. So she has one version if she’s going to do an in-home reveal. She has another version if she’s gonna do a studio reveal.

But I mean, all of those things we built in so that you know what needed to go, and you planned what went in each of those workflows, and you are the person that knows, okay, and if they’re gonna do this, then this is the workflow that they need. And I do feel like at the end of the day, because I know that you’ve done some of these things, you learn so much putting those workflows together that, like, I don’t think there’s anything that you couldn’t do in a workflow.

And I personally, I haven’t heard from you, right, since you stopped. Like, you haven’t come to me with, like, any SOS calls that I can recall,

Xan: No, just you, you contact me when you get m- your ran- the scheduling mess. You’re like, “Hey, look, you scheduled something.”

Colie: So guys, there was a point when Zan wasn’t getting any of the reminders, like when someone scheduled or when someone did something, and I was like, “Oh, well, you know, just go look over here and make sure that your notifications were on.” And she’s like, “I did, and they’re on.” And so she contacted customer service, and what I will say is that they definitely fixed her problem.

And for the first time ever in any client’s account, I am now getting notifications of every single thing that is scheduled in her business. And some people might find that annoying, but here’s the thing. I was still on her account until now in case I had to go look at anything relevant to this interview.

I did not remove myself from her account now. But the moment that we are done recording, I am going to say, “See you, Zan.” And it’s not because I don’t love her. It’s because I was actually worried that if I went in there and I messed with my own notifications, because they should technically be separate, but I was really worried that it would affect you.

And so I’m like, “No, I can just get these notifications for now. It’s fine.” I mean, they go into a folder with all of the rest of my Dubsado notifications, so it’s really not that bad. But it also gave me, like, the opportunity to pat you on the back and give you a, “Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of you,” from across the internet when I see that people are actually booking the calls and going through the process and, like, all of those things.

Xan: It is, it, it, it is a really, like, exciting… Like, so for example, um, we had set up a scheduler for the discovery call. So, so usually when I get an inquiry, I call them right away. I- most people don’t answer the phone. I don’t even answer the phone when I get a call from a number I don’t recognize. So, like, I get that.

It’s not personal. but a lot of times what happens is, is then, uh, you know, I will say, “Hey, I, uh, give me a call,” or, “I will try you again at this time,” right? “You can expect a follow-up call from me at this time.” There’s been a handful of times where we’ve played phone tag, and we just keep missing each other.

At that point, I then send them a scheduler and say, “Hey, look, I know we’re both busy. I still would really love to talk to you. Here’s my availability. If any of these times work, just book, just book a call, and then we can chat.” And what was interesting is, is that we had obviously set that up for my s- my specific offer, the, the empowerment sessions, but we hadn’t set up one just for a general portrait inquiry, like a non-empowerment.

And so I go, “Oh my gosh, like, everything on this is

Colie: As empowerment, mm-hmm

Xan: So I copied it, I changed the little banner, and, like, I changed the verbiage so it was just a g- a generic portrait inquiry, and sent her that scheduler and, and we booked a session, and we… Or booked a, a call and, and talked, and it was wonderful.

So that was actually the first time that I had, like, made a scheduler on my own. Granted, like, taking the majority of the, of the elements that we had previously set up, but it was really easy. And it, so it’s like now I have the confidence to do these things on my own I created another choose your own adventure workflow for, , for after the session.

And so, like, I was working on that, and honestly, I think there was one time that I was like, “Oh gosh, I wish I could ask Colie this.” But just, like, with me firing off all those tickets, in, like, five minutes I was like, “Oh, I figured it out. I got it now.

Colie: Zan, I’m so proud of you.

Xan: Baby’s all grown up”

Colie: you. I know. I mean, and the thing is, I know that by doing this done-with-you system setup, I know that I am, in a way, cutting my own foot off because you guys are not gonna come back to me in the same way that my clients in the past have come up, come back to me, and that’s okay.

Like, I had to be good with that. I love knowing that now when you guys have questions, like, it’s so rare when I hear from you guys because I have my retainer offer, but not everybody needs Colie on call and, you know, that’s great. That’s good. It might be that in another season of life you do need to come back because that isn’t just systems, it’s also business coaching in general.

But it makes me so happy when I send you guys a- an email 30 days out and I’m like, “I haven’t heard from you. Are you using the systems? Because I just wanna make sure that they’re actually getting used.” And you know, a lot of the times clients will say what you said, Zan, “Oh yeah, like I’ve already made three more workflows and I created a new scheduler, and hey, you know how I hadn’t done my family’s?

Oh, those are all done and they’re working.” And I’m just like so proud and so happy and kind of kicking myself at the same time that like, why didn’t I think to do this done-with-you offer years ago? Like, I, I like building things, but that’s not actually what made me happy about my previous offer. My previous offer made me a lot of money, but that’s not what actually made me happy about it.

I liked the design, and in reality, I like telling you what to do more than I like doing it myself. Like, this makes me immensely happy in a way that I just can’t express in words, even though I try often

Xan: I think what’s interesting is, like, thinking back to when I was first introduced to you, that was what your offer was, it was done for you. And I remember, I mean, I think at that point in my business, like, I j- I wasn’t at that point yet. I mean, I, I, I was part-time, I didn’t have the, the, the volume of, uh, clients to, like, really justify paying someone to build me a system.

And I’m s- honestly so thankful for a couple different reasons that I didn’t do that then. One, ’cause I wouldn’t have learned it, right? I then wouldn’t be able to do it on my own. But two, I didn’t really know what system I needed yet. And even though I don’t recommend people to pay for Dubsado for years and not use it, do not recommend that, I will say that taking that time building my business, coming up with…

‘Cause I, I mean, like so many photographers and creatives, like, I have gone through so many different versions of my offers. I was all-inclusive, right? Like, At one point I had, you know, session fee plus three packages, right? Like, I mean, so, like, I, I have kind of done it all. And if we had jumped in and created systems for a version of my business four times ago, it really wouldn’t have made sense.

And so I took the time limping along and piecing it together and, and really kind of doing things the hard way. But I got to a point where I like, “Oh, no, I know exactly what it is that I need to build. I just need Colie to help me build it.” Then I, we, we’ve created a… I mean, not to, yes, we will tweak this.

There will be changes. My offer will evolve more. It’s never done, right?

Colie: Business is never done. Systems are never set it and forget it. Yes. Say it again, Sam.

Xan: I, I will always need you, Colie. At s- at some point in my life, I will come back to you. But, you know, a- and also, I mean, for case in point, I was listening to the episode you dropped yesterday or whatever with, with Becca from Dubsado, and I was so excited to hear that we can now get rid of those reschedule buttons.

I’m like, “Colie, show me where that is.”

Colie: Oh, there’s so much more coming, Zan. The new… I mean, although I feel like a lot of it you’re not gonna care about, but, like, the new form builder, girl, it has auto-save. And now you… It’s kind of like a package, and you just put the things in it that you want. And, I mean, they have new design things that are coming.

And so, I mean, I think that you are gonna be really happy with the things that they’re bringing down the pipeline. Oh, something that I literally just got access to this morning or late last night is they now have kind of like a… They have integrated a Venmo page. So here’s the thing, you have a link now where you can just send it to somebody, and they can just pay you an amount.

So let’s say for some reason that you needed to collect a payment from your client, and you didn’t wanna go create an entire invoice. Let’s say that, you know, they added something on or whatever. Now you’re gonna be able to have a link where you can just send it to them, and they can just enter an amount and send it back.

Like, I don’t know that I have a use case for this, but there are lots of people on the internet that are super happy about it. So, I mean, they are, they are doing more things, and they’re expanding what they’re actually considering Dubsado to be in terms of, like, how we consider projects and what other features they can bring to where not everything has to go into a project.

So, I mean, you know, there’s always new exciting features down the pipeline that you may or may not need inside your business

Xan: No, I mean, you know, for me, the biggest thing is I’m really excited about conditional logic, , in workflows, even though I feel like the workarounds that we came up with, work fine. They’re solid. I’m not worried about them. But once conditional logic gets introduced, I think that will really,

I think it’ll simplify, honestly. Like, it’ll condense the workflows, right? ‘Cause we’ve got one workflow that

Colie: home

Xan: for one, right? So it’ll just, it’ll simplify that, which will be really nice. But again, it’s not like we can’t do what we need to do right now, it’s just we gotta get creative with it. I Don’t really need the, extra features and schedulers anymore because I’m not using, not sending them to people, people aren’t booking on their own.

But I will f- I do feel like that’s gonna be incredible and a game changer when, when they have, a more robust scheduler. In listening to the episode, her talking about the form builder, I am like, “Okay, I need to go check this out. Like, I need to now go learn all the cool new features there,” because I do feel like that is something I can really, incorporate and kind of make things more exciting and prettier and

Colie: And prettier. I mean, you know, I have all of these blog posts, all of these podcast episodes about the design elements of a proposal. But I will tell you, Zan, the moment that they give us anything, like even recognizably near what you can do with a Flodesk email, I’m gonna have you back on the podcast so we can record an episode about it so that I can do a blog post about all the features.

I mean, because… And it, it was really funny because after you, you know, you did the table, you centered it, you did all those things, I had a call with Jordan. He was well out of sy- Systems and Session Payment. Oh, actually, I think it was his case study interview, and when we stopped recording, I was like, “Oh yeah, by the way, my client Zan, um, I’m gonna send you a few of her emails so that you can see them because some of the things that you asked me are things that she just rammed to figure out how to do it.

And so I’m gonna send that to you when we get done.” Um, but I mean, you know, just in general. Now, design is important, and I do feel like so many of you have made the comments that I really do hope that they have some more design features, even though at the end of the day, Dubsado is well beyond any of the other CRMs in terms of how you can customize and create an on-brand experience.

But the other part that you’re not using, and I don’t know that you would even use it, but the other thing that people complain about a lot is the portal. And so I feel like if you were gonna use the portal, you would have a lot to complain about, so I was really grateful that you didn’t wanna use the portal because you would’ve complained about that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Xan: Yeah. Yeah, no, I honestly, I’ve, I don’t even think I’ve ever touched it. I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know the first thing about the portal. But yeah, I, I mean, kind of going back to, um, taking care of things for my clients, I feel like the portal is more kind of like, “Oh, you’re looking for something? You go find it.”

Right? 

Colie: Instead of them asking you and you providing it.

Xan: yeah. And I think, and I… For me personally, the experience that I’m trying to create for my clients, I want them to feel nurtured. I want them to feel taken care of. I don’t wanna say, “Yeah, you go find it. It’s in there somewhere. Go look for it,” you know?

Colie: And that’s honestly part of the problem now is that I find it very messy and unorganized, and it really is like a scavenger hunt at this point if you send your client in there. I can’t ever find anything. So every time I get a client that’s like, “Oh, Colie, but like I was gonna use the portal,” I was like, “But do you really?

Do you really need to use the portal? Like, let me just give you my experience with it.” And they’re like, “Oh, okay. I get it.” I’m like, “Maybe in the future when we have a better portal, I will go back to all of those people with a mea culpa and be like, ‘Okay, now it’s, now it’s allowable. Now you can use it.’ But right now, no.”

I find the fact that you, you know, you have all of these things and it opens… And then for some of my repeat clients, because, you know, when I was still doing photography, I had tons of repeat clients, it was very confusing making sure that they were in the project that they needed to be in. Because one time I had somebody schedule an appointment and I was like, “I don’t even use that scheduler anymore.

Like, how did they do that?” It was because they had went to the portal to a previous project, and that was the scheduler that popped up. And I was like, “Oh my God, no. Never again.”

Xan: Oh, man. 

Colie: okay. Well, Zan,

Xan: Yes 

Colie: amazing to have you on for this episode. I am so glad that I got to work with you, that you are now using the CRM that you are paying for, and that honestly, at the end of the day, I can say that what you created while I held your hand is exactly what you needed to give your clients the exact experience that you had designed.

And so at the end of the day, you get a gold star

Xan: Well, I mean, honestly, I will take the credit for where the credit is due. I mean, I did work very hard. I did have very specific things that I wanted and things that I was not willing to concede on. Um, but I mean, really the experience of doing it with you and having you there to hold my hand, having me there to say, “Nosy and you’re crazy.

Don’t wor- like, don’t waste your time on this tiny little thing that no one’s gonna notice. Focus on these things. This is what’s important.” That was really helpful because I can get lost in the weeds a lot. I, I really can like f- just obsess about one minor detail and not let it go. And so it was helpful for you to be like, “Nobody cares.

No one’s gonna notice. Put, put your energy and your time into these big ticket things that really are gonna make a huge difference to your clients, that are gonna elevate your experience, and that’s what they’re gonna remember, and that’s what they’re gonna walk away with,” is, oh, I f- you know, I, I felt so taken care of by all of these thoughtful emails and messages and high touch things.

And, um, yeah, you, you, you knew exactly what I… I was able to tell you what I needed, and you were able to be like, “I know how to make that happen.” So thank you

Colie: I was, and thank you. But also, I’m just gonna say one more thing before we end this conversation. In some cases, ’cause you make it seem like I tell you, “No, don’t worry about it,” and then we move on. I will say part of what I take my job and my role as in the accountability is you are spending too much time on this compared to the other things that we need to do.

So like the thing with the emails, like I was telling you, “I need you to just live with it for now,” and you finished your workflows, and then you basically came back around to the emails. So I mean, I listen to your concerns. I wanna make sure that I can help you do all of the things that you want, but sometimes I do have to tell you, “No, and you are not allowed to think about this until you do the next five things that I have already told you to do.”

You are not the only person that I have to get a little forceful with in that way. I mean, I’m happy to come back around, but like I had one client that I was working with that got so close to the finish line of testing full systems and then started working on all these other things, and I’m like, “I’m not answering a single more…

a single additional support ticket until you submit this so that we can test it, so that you know that you have one signature offer that is fully working. Like no more. You are getting distracted. You are looking at all of the shiny shit outside of what we need to do in order to say that you did your one signature offer from beginning to end.

So please do this, and then I will answer any question that you have.” So yeah, sometimes I do have to get a little mean, just a little

Xan: Little mean.

Colie: to get you back

Xan: for my shirt that said Colie, Colie made me do it,

Colie: Colie made me do it. I know. I, I really do need a merch shirt. I mean, I really do need a merch, uh, something on Etsy, something that my clients, I can just send it to you guys like in a box.

Oh my gosh, because speaking of like gifts, Zan, over the years, I have tried so many times to like curate the amazing… Like a mug, and I, I actually had mugs that sa- Oh, you know what? I had mugs that had my logo on them and my llamacorn, and it said, “Because I said so.” But… And I mean, I have a box of like 20 of them in this house.

I was so happy that I got them, you know, printed, made, whatever the word is. And then when I shared it with Maddie, Maddie goes, “Is that a 12-ounce mug? Who the fuck is gonna drink coffee out of a 12-ounce mug?” And I was like, “Oh my God, you’re so right. I should reorder these as 20s.” And then I never did. So best of intentions and all of that.

Xan: Yep. Yep. That’s hilarious. I would drink out of a 12 ounce mug

Colie: uh, it’s act- I mean, this is not the mug, but it’s this size. And it had pink inside too. I mean, it was just like this, but it had the llama. I’m gonna find that box. I don’t actually know if it’s in this house or the other house. I’m gonna find that box and send you a picture of one of those mugs.

Xan: I can’t wait.

Colie: Maybe I’ll just send it to your house. You’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, she sent me a mug.” Yes, I

Xan: I got a mug.

Colie: Yes. Uh, but Zan, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. I can’t say enough how, proud I am of you and how I am appreciative of the fact that you let me help you in your whole systems journey, and now you are where you need to be.

Xan: Well, I, I preach you to everyone I know, uh, even non-creatives. So, um, I, I spread the Colie love.

Colie: Oh, thank you so much. Now, if 

Xan: honestly, doing the experience edit first was huge because I felt when I, when we, like, jumped in to Systems in Session, we already had the roadmap.

Like, it wasn’t like, “Oh my God,” like, “What are we doing and what are we creating and how is this going?” Having mapped that entire customer journey out, it was like when we sat down for our s- for our first meeting for Systems in Session, it was like, “Okay, we know what we wanna create. Where do we start? How…

You know, where, what, what’s the first element we’re gonna work on?” And so that was such… I, I’m, like, so glad that that is now kind of, um, something that you make everyone do because it really, really helped make a, a, a roadmap. Hello, it’s what it is. But, but we had a plan for our two months. We knew exactly what we had to make, what we had to work on, relatively in order to do things, but it, it was all mapped out there and it worked beautifully, and we then weren’t missing pieces

Colie: I mean, and the changes that I’ve made since you did it is now the five-day sprint is 10 days, and the first week is dedicated to the touchpoints. And so every day of the week there’s a different activity so that we can make sure that you have mapped out a customer journey that is as high touch or low touch as your heart desires and your clients need.

And we don’t actually start drafting that client communication library, which I felt I used to make the central point when it was known as Email Like You Mean It. But now that it’s The Experience Edit, the first week we plan, and the second week is when you start drafting your client communication library.

And so I feel like in this next run, it is going to be even more impactful for people who are in Systems in Session because you are really gonna have a lot of time and access to me in that first week to plan the customer journey. Then you draft the emails and then, like you said, when you start Systems in Session, it’s like we can immediately jump in to looking at your inquiry process or creating a proposal if you are someone who has clients that are just waiting to pay you, but you don’t currently have a mechanism to get them to pay you, you know, in the most efficient way possible.

And so I’m really happy that I’ve made this change. I mean, it goes into effect in July, so if you are interested in Systems in Session and you join by July 10th, just know that you get a free seat inside of the next live sprint for The Experience Edit, which is happening July 13th through July 24th. And so if you are on the fence after listening to this episode, I mean, go listen to a few more case studies and then come find me and join Systems in Session.

You can go to coliejames.com/systems for additional information. Zan, thank you so much for joining me in this episode. It was, like, so much better than I ever could have hoped.

Xan: Yay. Well, and I just have to say really quick, I- in that change that you made to make that, that first section be mostly about mapping the client journey, I think that it’s so important to, to really spend some time with that, just that part, because, I mean, like we said, I came up with 80 touchpoints. That took me some time, and I literally kept going, “Oh, wait, wait, wait.

No, there’s also that. Oh, wait, no, no, no. I know I send this. Oh, wait, wait, wait. No, hold on, I wanna add that.” And so it’s, you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna really have it unless you’ve been doing the same thing over and over and over again. I feel like it actually takes a little bit of time, and you think of more things you want to add.

That… I mean, that’s what happened to me. I’m like, “Yeah, I’m sending a, a, a welcome gift in the mail at this point, but you know what? I also wanna send a thank you note at this point.” And so then being able to just be like, “Okay, plop that in, plop that in. Here’s another touchpoint, here’s another touchpoint,” it, it was really crucial to have the time to, to really sit with that and, and build it and add things to it

Colie: I mean, I… It took me a while to get here, but I really do think that the fact that, like, the words that I use now over and over again are client experience and not workflows, I think that that is, like, the thing for me now. And I really want people to know that at the end of the day, this is not just about automating everything that you do with your clients.

It is about building an experience that wows them, has them leaving you a rave review, has them referring you to all of your friends, like that hairdresser that you mentioned that hasn’t even worked with you, um, and also that your clients come back as repeat clients. I mean, all of us want that in our business, and I don’t think that we’ve ever really sat down and thought about the fact that the entire experience that you’re giving your clients is what determines what happens when you actually stop working with them the first time.

That is how people give you these amazing testimonials and wanna work with you again and wanna tell all of their friends and business besties about you. And so, I mean, focusing on the client experience, even if you don’t join me in Systems Obsession, I mean, I feel like every quarter everybody should have an hour where you do nothing but think about the client experience that you’ve given your clients the previous quarter.

What can you make better? What feels out of place now? Write all those things down, implement them into your client experience, specifically your CRM, even more specifically your workflows, and that’s how you build a business that you are super proud of and that your clients are overjoyed to be a part of

Xan: Totally. 100%.

Colie: Now, if you are listening to this episode, chances are the July sprint for the Experience Edit has not taken place yet. If you join Systems in Session for Q3 before July 10th, you will get a seat inside of the Experience Edit, which basically gives you an additional two weeks to work with me outside of your 60 days, where we will map your customer journey, and then you will see that amazing Google sheet that we were talking about with Zan earlier.

And then you actually start to draft your entire client communication library before we start your time in Systems in Session. And so if that interests you, go to coliejames.com/systems and see where we’re at. All right. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.