It’s not too often that I bring someone on the podcast who does exactly what I do (let’s be honest, I never have), but Ashley Tindall of Solution Integrators joins me in today’s episode to discuss the value of systems from the perspectives of systems strategists. There is so much value in creating a cohesive client experience in your CRM that not only converts, but allows you to stand out to and connect with your clients. Listen in as we highlight some of the biggest struggles we see our clients face, our thoughts on the tools and solutions that are available, and why we believe it’s or job to save you time and money.
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Guest Bio:
As a Chief Systems Officer, Ashley works to take your complex problems and find ways to simplify them! With a background in Project Management and Business Analysis, Ashley works with biz owners to pick apart how they do business today, dive deep into every step of their client journey, and build a systems and tool suite they love.
Your DREAM client experience is at the core of everything Ashley works to create. Whether you’re building your business, growing your business, or ready to scale your business, she’ll ask the tough questions (with love of course!) and put in the work to not only streamline but simplify the way you work!
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Client Hub Template inside the DIY Systems Template Shop. Business owners often have their client information spread across a variety of different tools, making it hard to access the information they need to make critical decisions. That’s why I built the Client Hub Template for Airtable, to take the guesswork out of building your own!
Here are the highlights…
[1:10] Get to Know Ashley
[3:20] The Most Important Key to Client Experience
[5:34] Automations & Processes for Clients
[7:52] Don’t Let Disorganization Keep You from Getting Help
[10:19] Your Full CRM Setup
[13:25] Favorite Setup
[17:40] Saving You Time through Automations
[21:27] Creating a Cohesive Experience
[22:10] Email Communication to Convert with 3 Day Timeline
[26:03] Getting Closure from Quiet Inquiries
[29:00] Application vs. Open Inquiry Form
[31:45] Tools & Integrations
[35:45] Utilizing the Systems You’re Ready For & Your Process
[41:20] The Impact of a Cohesive Experience
[46:15] The Value of a Professional Systems Strategist
Mentioned in this Episode
Free Big Ideas Business Growth Planning Checklist: solutionintegrators.us/big-ideas-roadmap
Connect with Ashley
Website: solutionintegrators.us
Instagram: instagram.com/solution.integrators
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Y’all know I don’t let a lot of systems people on this podcast, right? So today you are in for a treat because I have invited another amazing systems expert to talk all about the client experience. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the business first creatives podcast. I am here with my friend Ashley and guys, she kind of does what I do, which I swear, I never thought I’d let somebody like me on my own podcast, but she is here because she is a riot.
And I think that after listening to her just for a hot minute, you are going to understand why I was like, Ashley, don’t you want to come on my podcast? Good morning, Ashley. Welcome to the podcast.
Ashley: Hello. Thank you for having me. You know, I’m always down for my other systems. People definitely understand to, you know, like, okay, this isn’t for everybody, but, um,
Colie: I mean,
Ashley: for having me.
Colie: Yeah. So why don’t you tell the listening audience, like who you are, name of your business and what you do so that they can see how it’s aligned with like what I
Ashley: Yep. So I am Ashley Tindall, owner of Solution Integrators. I like to call myself a chief systems officer because it’s just really extra as hell. It sounds good, you know, all the things. So I love, love, love, love Dubsado. I set up strategy implementation support. I have a. A few other tools that are my jam, you know, the click ups and air tables of the world.
But really kind of the full shebang is I love talking about your client experience, helping you to wow, you know, your potential clients, new clients. All past clients, whoever, from start to finish, and help you make money, right? Like my, my biggest thing is helping other people win, no matter what we do, no matter how we do it.
So, um, even though, you know, we do the same thing, I want to see you win too, girl. So,
Colie: Yes. That’s why you’re here. I mean, you know, I was like, is it weird if I bring someone that does like the exact same thing I do? Cause guys, when I say we do the same thing, like if you go look at her page, our offers are very, very similar.
As is our passion about client experience. So let’s start there, Ashley, what is the most important thing that you feel like everyone’s client experience should include
Ashley: It has to be uniquely you, right? So, even if I use us as an example, yes, we do the same thing. Yes, there are 2, 465 other damn people that do exactly what we do, right? And that’s fine. There’s nothing that we can control or stop other people from doing what we do. But as long as we are uniquely ourselves, we are showing up, I like to use that, Leonardo DiCaprio meme where he’s pointing like, Oh shit.
So like when somebody comes. Or Instagram or whatever. I want them to be like, Oh, she’s talking to me. Like that’s me. Right. And I’m not for everybody and that’s fine. I know I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, but if I can talk to one person and they resonate with how I present my offers or how I, you know, showcase.
It’s who I am, what I do, why I love what I do. I’m fine with that, right? You’re gonna talk to your peeps and they gonna eat that shit up and be like, yup, she’s talking to me, right? And that is totally fine. So, no matter what, no matter how fancy it looks or automated it is, as long as it is uniquely you and your own brand, your own brand voice, that’s really all that matters at the day.
Colie: mean, and I’ve never really gotten a chance to ask these questions. Cause again, I don’t, let’s say some people on my podcast, but actually let’s talk about, cause you said the word automated. And so I think that that is where like. Miscommunication, comes in about what we do, because I think everybody thinks that we just want to go into your business and automate the shit out of everything.
Guys, it is my tagline. I understand that, but before we get to the automation, we have to actually work on your client experience.
Ashley: mm hmm,
Colie: And so what, what kind of processes do you have in order to determine how to make a client experience uniquely you for each of your clients? Because I do feel like clients come to us with knowledge that they don’t even know that they have.
So I spend so much time like unpacking what someone already has in order to like streamline it and make it better. So what do you think
Ashley: Yep. So I always, and I’m sure your, your clients are the same way. Like they come to you and like, Oh, I heard Dubsado can do this. Or I heard this tool can do that. Like, you know, I probably need these workflows. I probably need this. And you know, I kind of stop them there, right? Like back up.
But let’s talk about your dream process steps, right? And I like to frame it that way of. Regardless of tool or time or energy, whatever, right? Like you’re paying me to do the hard stuff for you. So I want you to get it out of your brain and document what you would love to have happen. So the moment somebody says, yep, she’s my girl, fills out her form, to inquire, to work with you.
What do you want to have happen? Right? Like, what do you want that process to look and feel like? And then how do you want to go manage that? The biggest thing for me that I always like to find is, you know, I want things to be as simple as possible for you and your team to go manage. Whether it’s you’re doing it now, you decide to hand this shit off to somebody else to go manage for you.
How can we make that? As simple as possible. So document your dream steps. I want my client to be wowed with this email and you know, They receive a proposal that shows them all the bells and whistles and fireworks and shit But I also want my VA to know The exact step she needs to go take to go on board this client or to go follow up with this potential lead Um, so I always like to say just document your dream steps.
I know we know that currently your shit’s broken and that’s okay. You know, it’s a mess and that’s fine. And that’s why you’re here. Right. But again, what would you want to have happen? What are those dream things that you’re like, man, it would be really, really nice. If this happened, so kind of starting there.
And then I always feel like it’s our job to kind of do some of the thinking for our clients, you know, so like you said, like, a lot of times they don’t know what they had. They didn’t know that they had all this goodness in their mind. So we get it out of them. And then, okay, well, let me go make that a reality now.
So you don’t, you’re paying me to do, go think for you to an extent.
Colie: Yes. And you know what I just realized, listening audience, I have someone else here that can assure you that we don’t care about your dirty laundry. Do you ever get clients like that? They’re like, Oh, I’m so embarrassed to give you my Dubsado login. I’m like, number one, I have seen worse. I guarantee you.
And number two. Like don’t let your disorganization stop you from going to someone to get better systems because I mean, that’s what I’m here for. I’m here to fix your broken shit. And yes, you might have 20 duplicates of the same
Ashley: Copy. Copy, copy. Copy,
Colie: that has happened. I’m like, and of course we have to open everyone.
To see if there’s some tiny detail that’s different and when you discover that there isn’t, you’re like, Oh my God, they just hit copy as a template over and over and
Ashley: Mm hmm.
Colie: but I’m here to tell you guys, like, we’re not judging you. We are going to take all of that mess and all of that disorganization and make it beautiful.
I mean, because 1 time, I think I was speaking to a bookkeeper. And they express, you know, people are really scared to give them their logins to their bank account. They don’t want to be judged for spending too much money, for spending money on the wrong things, for not having, you know, a separate business account.
And I’m like, as systems people, we get that too. For sure.
people are afraid of letting us see under the hood. And it’s like, okay, I, I
Ashley: I’ve seen it all at this point. Like there’s nothing that’s gonna come. I don’t know. I don’t want to say nothing. And then somebody come along and scare me the hell away. Right. There is nothing that I can think of that would completely just scare us away of like, damn, she got.
80 duplicate forms. Like, it is what it is. Like, we know that. Um, but again, that’s what you’re paying us for, right? To go fix the shit. To go make it better. To help you work smarter. Save you some damn time. and everything else in between. So.
Colie: I will say I had one client love you. If you’re listening, I’m not going to say your name and embarrass you, but I hyperventilated every time. I’ve tried to go into her account to begin with. I opened it and I was like. Oh, my God, and then I closed it and I waited a few days and then I went back in it and I will say, I changed my processes after that after that.
On my, on my lead capture, it says, are you a current Dubsado user? And if they say, yes, I asked them for their, I asked them to add me to their account before we have a consultation
Ashley: it all.
Colie: because I don’t ever want to be caught where I’m like, Oh, we’ll just do this and this. And then you get back there and you’re like, Oh my God, this is going to take me like two full days to clean it up before we can do the next thing.
But, you
Ashley: yeah, So you, you gave me a thought because I think this goes back to, you know, a lot of people are always like, well, I don’t need a full setup, right? Like, I just need, you know, maybe a couple workflows here, maybe a couple whatever, right? But when we come in as experts, we’re touching everything.
in this damn tool, you know, we’re touching your integrations. We’re making sure that, you know, everything is working well. And it requires us to, like you said, open up these forms, see if there’s anything that we actually need out of here, review these packages, which ones are you actually still sending, which ones are old, right?
And so I actually stopped using the. the phrase like full setup and I’ll start describing my deliverables, right? I’ll start saying, you know, the work that I’m going to do, I’m going to write your email copy, design your forms, build out your workflows. And they’re like, yeah, I need all of that. Right. And then that’s a full setup. what that is. So I’ve had to kind of stop, you know, when people are like, well, no, I just, I’ve already been using Dubsado. So I don’t need everything. No, you do. Because you’ve been using Dubsado not well,
Colie: Incorrectly.
Ashley: so, come on.
Colie: Girl, I had someone that came to me one time and they said, Oh no, I’ve been using Dubsado. I think I just need like the strategy part, like the part where I’m tying your workflows together. Right. Okay. They only had been using Dubsado for contracts. They weren’t even getting paid in
Ashley: Yeah. Wow.
Colie: weren’t getting paid, weren’t sending offers only for contracts.
And I was, that’s again, we live and we learn. That was when I, you know, I no longer said, I was breaking it down into like what I consider to be a full
Ashley: Mmhmm. Mmhmm.
Colie: to be a day of implementation and a day of, um, strategy, but like, I, I took, I took the implementation
Ashley: Yep.
Colie: because then if, if they really did need only implementation, I mean, I can tell when I go in your back end, but yeah, I mean, we have to look at everything because, you know, we can’t just go in there and delete everything.
before knowing if it has any value going forward in the setups that we’re going to provide you. And it’s like the same thing with emails. Oh no, I have all my emails done. Okay. But they have no smart
Ashley: Yep.
Colie: They don’t include the correct information. And then now that we are kind of outlining out this new client experience, even if you have emails, they probably need to be repurposed into different emails, because we are going to determine all the emails that you need for your entire experience and like.
We can take information from your original emails and repurpose it into the new ones. But I mean, I haven’t met a client yet where I could just go into their account and just take all their emails and just,
Ashley: Never.
Colie: just automatically send them. That’s just, that’s not a
Ashley: All right. Not at all. Never has happened. So, yeah.
Colie: What’s your favorite thing that you’ve set up for someone during their client experience? Like, what is something that you were like, I mean, and I know this has happened, like, you’re like, Damn, that
Ashley: good.
Colie: Uh, yeah.
Ashley: Oh, goodness. Um, my favorite thing, because there’s a lot. So I’m really big on like, well, first, I don’t believe that there’s a such thing as an all in one tool. They don’t exist and that’s fine. That’s that’s totally fine. But as long as you can completely integrate that tool, you know, with another tool, that’s what you got to document it.
It’s a clear process. That’s fine. So a lot of what I do is, you know, I say, I’m going to push Dubsado to its capacity when it comes to inquiry, booking and onboarding. There are. There’s no other tool, in my opinion, that can do what Dubsado does seamlessly through those phases. But then when it comes to, you know, fulfilling the offer, you might have to hop out of Dubsado to go do something else.
So I would say, like, I really love kind of the full onboarding experience from Dubsado to other tools. So really saying, okay, well. Now I need to go set them up in ClickUp or in Kitchen or in Project. co or whatever, and being able to see a new client be onboarded from start to finish without my client having to do anything, right?
Like, your Google Drive folders are set up. They’re added to your email list. Their, you know, list is created in ClickUp and their, their Slack channel is created and all of these things that it used to either take them hours to do or they used to have to pay somebody else to go do manually, right? Um, now it’s like, well, damn, I don’t, it’s just all happening and I don’t have to do anything,
Colie: You just push a button. Boop boop!
Ashley: And one thing that I’ve started to add is, so I use Slack just like internally for notifications too because I fucking hate emails. But,
Colie: too!
Ashley: but when like an automation is complete, right? Like some clients are just need to know that, Hey, this stuff was done. So when the zap is completed and the documents are created, the templates, all the things they just send a little, you know, party message and Slack, like, Hey girl, all the onboarding steps for Ashley have been successfully completed.
You know, just those little things. And that comes back to automation, right? Um, it’s lovely to have these things automated. It’s even better to, like, have that, like, quality check or, like, that sense of comfort in knowing that, hey, the shit did what it was supposed to do. So I’d say, like, anything when it comes to, like, onboarding and being able to, like, automate that.
Like, I, I get, I geek. The F out when it comes to hearing all the stuff that people do manually, right? To onboard, because to me, that’s usually the most time consuming part of the client experience. So if I can hear something and be like, I’m gonna get rid of that for you.
Colie: I could fix that for you.
Ashley: That’s no more. Though, that’s always my favorite.
Like every time it never fails.
Colie: And I mean, I love hearing about your builds because you do that part way more than I do. It is actually very uncommon someone to hire me that I actually have to take their onboarding processes to another software just because of the clientele that I work for. You know, they just photographers just really don’t need that majority of the time.
But I love hearing about those bills from you because it is really awesome. When you get someone from one piece of software to the next and you didn’t have to lift a finger and you didn’t have to do a thing and it just works. But like the Slack message, I mean, my favorite thing is setting up a zap so that my clients can get a payment notification when they get
Ashley: Hey you have money in the bank, right?
Colie: level. Like, not only do you get the one to you got paid. It’s, Oh no, they’re completely all done. And then click up and. What you said is so on point because what we do often takes away the need to have someone do it manually and even if it’s you, it’s costing you money because it’s taking your time.
If you’re hiring a virtual assistant to do that, it’s taking you money because you’re paying them and I am not about eliminating jobs. But like, I’m sure that if you need me to tell you something else that your virtual assistant could do, rather than manually
Ashley: We
Colie: clients. I am
happy to pass that information along.
Okay. I can tell you something else that your virtual assistant can do for you, but this, like adding people to your Google sheets or your that’s, that’s not what you need to be paying them to
Ashley: Yep. Yep in VA’s don’t come for us, but
Colie: No, we love
Ashley: we’re trying to help you too, right like my You know, every time I meet a, like a growing CEO, they’re like, man, I really want to hire, like, I really want somebody to help me out. But right now it’s all in my head. It’s a mess. I want to design your processes and your tech for you to be able to hand off to somebody else to manage, right?
Like what’s your hourly rate? Do you, does it make sense for you to be sending proposals? through Dubsado if somebody else can go do it for you or following up on invoices or you know that don’t make sense so allow me to help you create a process and a documented process at that that you can hand off to this VA to go manage and do their jobs well because otherwise like I said you’re just wasting money it don’t make sense
Colie: And that is the thing, like, I want you to be as efficient as possible. And that means not wasting money on things that a robot could do for you. Like. I mean, we’re not even going to touch the AI part, but like, this is just literally your systems doing what you could be paying a virtual assistant to do so that you yourself have more time and capacity inside of your business and you can have your virtual assistant do something else other than onboarding your
Ashley: Yup. Yup. Yup. And I know a lot of times we say like, Oh, I want to save you time to focus on your clients. I want to save you time to do nothing. Like I want to give you time to do nothing. Right. Like literally nothing. Right. Like I want you to be like, man, this is set up. My processes are in place. I don’t have to worry about following up with leads or, Hey, I sent this proposal yesterday and they haven’t booked yet.
You know, No, I want you to be able to do absolutely nothing if you want to and that be totally fine, right? Like that’s what I want to give you back in your day. Nothing
Colie: One of, one of my clients that I did a case study on, I hired someone to interview my clients to write the case studies. And the 1 thing that she pulled out was my client said, you know, after Colie did my setup, like, a couple of weeks later, I woke up in the morning and realized that all the contracts had been sent out all the proposals were out.
The follow up emails were being done. And all I had to do was drink my coffee. And I was like, that is saying something to be able to enjoy a cup of coffee before you run to your office to see who needs to be followed up, who inquired overnight, like all of those things, the fact that you can just take a slow morning and enjoy your cup of coffee and drive your kids to school without worrying about your business until you get back.
Maybe I’m helping you start your day at nine instead of seven. There’s a lot of value
Ashley: Okay. A whole lot. A whole lot. And it’s worth, you know, it’s, it’s worth the, the time and the effort to make that investment. Right. I think a lot of times, you know, no matter the industry, like usually the focus is I got to make sure my branding is good. My website is good. And yes. Both of those things are absolutely necessary, right?
But then you don’t take time
Colie: That same energy!
Ashley: on how you run your business, right? How you manage your clients, how you manage your team, right? So keep that same energy, boo.
Colie: And actually I’m going to follow up on what Ashley said, because I have a podcast interview that I did with a copywriter and the whole thing was about taking what you do on your website and in like the visible parts and bringing that into your CRM. Because I think a lot of people are scared to like use the same client testimonials that are on their website or use this app.
No. First of all, not everybody saw it on your website. And second of all, I feel like you need to remind them when you’re asking them for money,
Ashley: yup,
say, I am
Colie: that might’ve been what brought them in, but
Ashley: Yeah, yeah.
Colie: I want to get paid.
Ashley: Yeah, and I don’t, I don’t understand why people don’t, see that. Like, that, your website, the, the copy there is what brought people in, right? Like, that’s what got them to resonate with you, or say, yup, that’s my person, right? So, taking it, making sure things are cohesive in that experience.
Have them pay you and have them continue to pay you in the future. So definitely, like, I’m always going to use, a good website as the starting point for, you know, copy and design when it comes to forms and emails and everything in between.
Colie: ask you, do you have a favorite part? Cause I’m going to tell you what my favorite part is. And then you tell me what your favorite part is. The part that I think I overlooked the most was writing the email communications. I feel like the, the pretty proposal, the proposal where you can include everything under the sun, you know, information about your offer.
All that’s really
good. But the emails are typically what get you paid if the proposal didn’t do the job initially. And so like, especially the follow up emails, I’m so passionate about writing the follow up emails, making sure that they are timed appropriately for your business. Because sometimes we were like, okay, Colie, but like, when do you send yours?
And I’m like, Oh, my first follow up goes up 24 hours after the proposal, second follow up goes out 48 hours. So day one, day two, day three and a half is when they get the, maybe we’re not going to be able to work together, you know, I’m a close, I’m a close. And they’re like, you only give people 72 hours.
And I’m like, yes, it gives me anxiety to have people sitting inside of what I would call a funnel.
Ashley: hmm,
yup,
Colie: Like I, if, if it’s a yes, let’s work together. If it’s a no, I want to know that so I can close you out. If it’s a maybe, I mean, I do want to like soft close you and just, you know, leave it open to where when you come back, I can, but like, I don’t want anybody to have an open proposal more than 72 hours because what happens, you might forget about them and then you
Ashley: I’m booked and busy and here you
Colie: come.
Hello. And then here you come. And what am I supposed to do with you? Because oops, I forgot to expire your proposal. Okay. Or to close out and archive your project. So, I mean, I don’t play when it comes to my funnel, like 72 hours, but that’s not appropriate for everyone. So I want to know what your timeline is.
Like, where do you feel comfortable deciding this is someone who’s not going to end up working with me. Let’s close them out so that they don’t appear as a lead on your calendar. You’re not sending them any more follow up emails. So yeah, that’s my
favorite part. What’s
Ashley: Minus the same and you get three days you get three days and but it like to your point It’s important to know your client You know, your potential clients, ideal clients in your funnel, right? When somebody gets on a call with me, I’m like, to me, it’s either you knew the moment we got on the call, whether or not you were going to work with me or not.
Right. and a lot of times I’ll say, I won’t say it’s a hundred percent. I’m going to say about 75 percent of the time. I
know if you’re, yeah, I know if you’re going to say yes or not. Right. because of. Everything that got you to that point, right? So, you know, I took the time to sit down and rewrite my initial inquiry emails too, right?
Like I have an application process. I want to review, make sure that it’s even worth your time to hop on a call with me, right? Maybe I can say, you know what? Colie’s a better fit for you. Let me send you over to her, right? I’m because I’m OK with that. I have no problem sending you to appear. But I want to make sure that throughout that communication, it’s clear what I do, how I do it and how much this offer is.
You’re going to acknowledge all of those things. So when we get on the phone. To me, at this point, it’s okay. Tell me what I need to know. Here’s my available dates. Which one do you want? And that’s it. It’s your, it’s a decision call. You know, you, you make that decision. So you get three days. I honestly feel like if after the first follow up I don’t think anybody will usually book after that like because it’s just it just is what it is like i’ll send it They either book immediately or they need that first follow up to be like, oh, yeah, I forgot, you know, they got away from me whatever but after that it’s a wrap like and i’m clear about that on the call.
I hold your date for three days After that, it’s gone. You know? And people understand that and respect that, right? But I usually also feel like if I don’t hear from them, that last email is like, Man, should I stay or should I go? You know? And that usually will get people to be like, Oh, my bad. You know, I went another direction or whatever.
Colie: So actually, actually, let’s talk about that because a lot of people, by the time you get to the third email, I make it very clear to my clients, not the people inquiring with me, the people that I’m setting up, I’m like, the third email is not to get them to book. The third email is to get you closure.
So that if they went another direction, they tell you so that you don’t sit there wondering, Oh, was this something that I said? Did they not prioritize getting this set up for them? Like I like closure. And like, I know that it’s hard to hear a no, everybody’s got that fear of rejection or that someone doesn’t want to work with you.
Oh, what’s wrong with me? No, I am grateful. When you tell me that I can no longer consider you to be a potential client, even after I archive your project. I appreciate
Ashley: sure. Because I feel like it helps me learn a little something too, right? Like, I went through a phase where I was like, well, do I allow anybody to schedule a call? Do I stick with the application? And kind of tested it out, right? And I felt like when I had the decision call scheduler up on my site, people were wasting my time.
You know, it was like, well, I’m meeting, you know, so and so I’m kind of, you know, filling things out now when somebody fills out my application, they know that they’re ready to, you know, they’re ready to work with me. It’s a, you know, and I’ll make it clear in the email that they do receive when I think we’re a good fit.
Like, look. I wanted to make sure that you’re my type of people and that I can be your type of people. So let’s hop on a call and make it a thing, right? But I 100 percent I want that closure, but also I just need to know like, man, maybe something in my copy is not clear. And this person thought. You know, it was okay to waste my time.
No, I don’t know. Like maybe I need to take action at that point to be like, man, okay. You know, there was a misunderstanding here or maybe this part of the process wasn’t clear. One thing that I’ve started to add like at the 24 hour reminder before a decision call, I send my service guide now. Yes, you’ve been on my site.
Yes. You’ve seen all the things people don’t read. I know that. We all, people don’t read, right? And it’s okay because I’m a good skimmer myself. But sending the service guide gives them a quick and dirty rundown of these. There’s three ways you can work with me, right? So when we hop on the call, they’re like, yep.
This offer, that’s what I need. Cool. When do you want to do it? And we can keep it moving from there like I don’t want to waste your time because time is money I don’t want to waste your time. You could be meeting with somebody else that’s you know, better suited for you But making sure that they’re getting all the information that they need so that we can make it a thing when we hop on the call and then if we if we We didn’t buy it, but that’s fine.
You know, it is what it is, but, like you said, that last email gives you, helps to give you that closure of like, cool, they weren’t, or maybe, hey, maybe in six months, three months off, I can follow up with them because they were interested, but they just weren’t ready to make the investment.
Colie: Yeah. I mean, and I’m really honest. I tell people when they’re not ready for my services, but I don’t do an application process like you. I do have an open scheduler, but after they schedule their, their time, they are filling out a form. It’s not a formal application, but it does give me the information.
Like, do you already have a Dubsado account? Do you need to add me so I can see how bad
Ashley: Yep.
Colie: we progress? But like, Yeah. It also just asked them, like, what, what is making you reach out to me today? Like, what is, what is actually not working for you in your systems right now? And sometimes people say things in that field that I’m like, okay, it’s not my services that are not a good fit.
You are not a good fit for Dubsado. Like if that’s what they’re inquiring about. And so then I will send them an email before the call. And I would say, Hey, you know, I’m really excited to talk to you, but. I noticed that you said this, and it’s usually related to, because you know what the
Ashley: Yeah.
Colie: of Dubsado are, like team management, like calendars, like that
Ashley: ain’t for you.
Colie: I’m like, This ain’t for you. I was like, now, if you would still like to hop on the call and I can give you the alternatives, happy to do that for you. Like that kind of thing. But I also say like, listen, like, I don’t think Dubsado is the product that you need to go with. And it’s funny because when I talked to some other systems.
Specialists, not you, Ashley. You’re not the one. There’s a couple others that are like, well, I don’t make it my job to convince them that they need Dubsado. Like I don’t make the tech decision for them. And I’m like, yeah, but you’re the one with the knowledge to be able to tell them that what they want is not a good fit for Dubsado.
So while I am not making the decision for them, I don’t want somebody to pay me 5, 000 and I get into it and I’m like, dude,
like
Ashley: pissed, right?
Colie: not this. And they’re like, well, I just wait. Exactly. So like I’m asking questions, not only to qualify someone for my service, but to make sure that whatever tool you’re coming to me for is a good fit.
Cause I mean, now I do Dubsado, HoneyBook and Airtable. So I got to ask different questions depending on which one of those they choose. But the bottom line is I never want you to hire me to help you create systems in a particular tool. If that tool is not the best fit for you. Like, I consider that to be my job and if it takes a free 15 minute consultation call for me to express to you that, Hey, this is not for you.
Go try this. And by the way, I don’t set that
Ashley: right, right, yeah.
Colie: I feel like I’m doing them a service. And you know what? Those people rave about
Ashley: for sure.
Colie: They tell their friends, Oh, no, like Colie wouldn’t let me hire
her, but you want Dubsado and you already use it. And so she’s a really good person for you.
Like I’ll take that every day of the
Ashley: 100%. I mean, there’s so many people that I’ve told like, look, you’re not gonna get what you want in Dubsado. And again, that’s fine. Right? And to that point either, here’s some tools. I work well in that I can help you with, or here’s some other tools and I can tell you, you know, send you to a friend of a friend.
We can go that route. But it’s all it’s so important. Like I always kind of push, You know, there are certain things, triggers that we listen for on those calls. But even in like my freebies or anything like that, I’m always going to push somebody to say, okay, document your dream process and then go find a tool that enables or supports that process.
Right. Quit trying to force, your, how you run your business and how you want to run your business into a tool that doesn’t work for you. Right. I have a client that is, a midwife. She loves Dubsado for its ease of, you know, taking in leads and sending proposals, but she didn’t want to have to apply a workflow to send off a proposal.
She didn’t want to do any of that. So we set up a custom, I don’t, I’m, I don’t want to call it a CRM in Airtable, but we set up a custom process for her so that, you know, she uses Calendly for leads to come in because she, she didn’t like the Dubsado scheduler. That’s fine,
Colie: because we
Ashley: We get it. You know, somebody books a consult with her, you know, she’ll get off the consult and decide how do I want to move forward?
Right? In Airtable, she will say, send them, you know, X proposal with this payment plan, send them Y proposal with this payment plan, and it will send off an email from Airtable with the link to a public proposal in Dubsado. So she can, they can pick the package, it already has the payment option that she specified on, you know, in Airtable.
They accept the proposal, sign the contract, pay the invoice, and then the workflow starts from there. She doesn’t ever have to step foot in Dubsado if she doesn’t want to. And she does, she doesn’t want to, right? She, I, she understood how well Dubsado worked for her for a very specific use case. Getting paid.
Colie: Getting
Ashley: Getting paid,
right?
Colie: I mean, because nothing beats a Dubsado, a Dubsado proposal for getting paid. That is the
Ashley: that is boom, boom, bam, literally, you know, and so that worked well for her, right? Like if, hey, it’s, I sent out the proposal, it’s been a couple days, they still haven’t completed it, right? I have the automations within Airtable to say, hey, do you want to follow up? So giving her that control, right?
She’s a midwife. Things could change, you know? God forbid they may lose the baby, right? They may decide to go with a different midwife. They may have already emailed her and say, Hey, you know what? This isn’t within my budget. So giving her that control of the automation to say, Yep, send a follow up. Yep, send the second follow up or nope, don’t do anything.
Right? So I really just love to tell me what you want and then I can tell you if it’s gonna work or if you’re gonna need something else, right? And something like that isn’t for everybody. You know, we know the people that struggle turning on their computer every day, right? If you are that person, You may
need
Colie: not gonna put you in two
Ashley: We’re not
Colie: not gonna give you
Ashley: We’re not gonna do that. You know, you need the structure and that is fine. That is okay. I know we all have those clients are like me and you showed this automation and that looked really fun And I want
Colie: That automation is not for you,
boo.
Ashley: you. It’s not for you, but that’s okay, right? Because we can make this work in the tools that work well for you, right?
And they still support your process the need it, but Don’t try to force things into a tool. Don’t try to make Dubsado do things it can’t do. Don’t try to make ClickUp be your CRM, you know, because you’re gonna hate your life doing that. That’s a whole nother conversation. ClickUp’s not a CRM. And it just, it’s not gonna work well.
I don’t, Asana, any of those. Anyway, but, but yeah.
Colie: And I feel like that is like a big part of our job because what I’ve come to realize in like the last year is that I only want to give you the systems that you are ready for, because guys, my brain works a mile a minute. I could set you up like
Ashley: I will
geek
Colie: I mean, I can give you every single email, every single automation, but some people don’t need all that.
Like they just, they have this one thing that they are suffering from and that’s too many people are ghosting me. Okay. Well, what can we do about that? Well, first of all, you take it too long to make the offer. Let’s shorten the timeframe from when someone inquires to when you make the offer. Okay. People are not automatically responding to your offers.
Well, we’ve already shortened the timeframe. Let’s make sure that we have some follow up emails. So I’ve actually in this year started putting more effort into getting people to automate and streamline the inquiry to booking process. And the rest we can do, we can do
Ashley: Mm hmm. Mm
hmm.
Colie: that’s going to give you like the biggest return on investment in your systems.
And as you were talking about your midwife, because, I mean, I don’t know if you know this, but I do birth photography,
so I am very aware of like the timeframes and all this, but like my timeframe for someone inquiring about a birth. It’s very different than my time frame for someone asking about a family.
I don’t give, I don’t give newborn moms 72 hours to decide. I feel like I have to say that out loud because sometimes, I mean, literally I had this one client and granted she was a return client. So, I mean, this
Ashley: Mm hmm.
Colie: but she contacted me. I think it was in December of one year. And she said, Okay, I’m due in September.
I just have to make sure that you don’t have any travel plans that you gonna be here for the birth. We want a fresh 48. And I was like, okay, I was like, I’ll send it over and hung up the phone and I was like, September. I started counting on my fingers and I was like, did she just pee on a
Ashley: literally
Yeah,
Colie: waited the whole time. And when I saw her in the hospital, I was like, by the way, I have been waiting this entire time to ask you, did you pee on a stick and email me? She goes, I peed on a stick. I called my husband. I called the daycare. And then I emailed you. She’s like, I have priorities. And I just started cracking
of laughing. But the fact that people inquire about newborn photography so much earlier than they actually need it, because those are the people that are really trying to like, they’re not really price
Ashley: Mm hmm.
Colie: It’s that they have a checklist of
Ashley: I gotta I gotta get it out of my head. Yeah
Colie: their babies. And so they really might not just be ready to book your services.
And so for newborns, my magic email is actually not as terse like that third one. It’s, I know you’re still early in your pregnancy. And so if there is a good time that you would like for me to reach back out to you, please let me know. Otherwise I will check back in with you in two to three months, depending on, you know, How far pregnant they are.
And I’ll just check in and make sure that you’re all set for your newborn photography. Is that all right with you? You do it as a service, but again, like your timelines aren’t for every single one of our clients that we set up. And in your offers, you can also have different timelines because not all your clients are the same.
Some of them need a little bit more nurturing, a little bit more space between seeing the offer and actually saying
Ashley: For sure. It’s so important to, you know, every, every offer, every step of the process to know, like, okay, my ideal clients, the people that I work with will generally, you know, need this or they need that, right? Like, it’s so important to, to create that experience around them. Yo people,
Colie: and there’s something to be said for like warning people of the specific customizations that they can make.
Do you have any DIY offers or is everything done for
Ashley: So I do have DIY offers. I will say. 80 percent of my ideal clients just want me to do this shit for them. I created DIY offers because there’s people that just find you on the internet and you know, need these things, right? but I’ve purposely structured a lot of my DIY offers. So I have a Done For You, Dubsado setup, all of that.
But I purposely guide them through just like I would for a Done For You client. Give me your process. Give me the assets and collateral. Okay, now let me go tell you what tools can do this for you. Yes, Dubsado can do these things, but you’re gonna need whatever tool for this stuff. So I have templates in that way, and I really encourage people to always customize these things, right?
Yes, you see what we do and you’re like, Oh my God, I love it. That works so well. Yeah, it works for me. I mean, it’s gonna work for you. And again, that is okay. I, I have lots of templates out there. I’m always gonna encourage somebody to be like, look, this sounds like me, you know, or this, this particular, you know, how I do certain things.
mean, I’ve had competitors take literally take my copy and, and You know, use it for their stuff. Right? And again, it’s, it is what it is. Right? But at the end of the day, like when I, when I sit down on a call with somebody I’m representing, you know, the person that they’re seeing and talking to is fully represented in my entire experience.
Right. you want to make sure that it’s the same way for your ideal clients. Right. I don’t want to get on the website and be like, Oh, this is so great. This is so dope. And then I hop on a call and I’m like, She ain’t who she said she was. You know?
Colie: girl. Let’s, let’s take a pause. Cause that’s what I was, remember you said cohesive experience, right? And I just want to note that isn’t just. The website, the social media and the CRM, it’s also who shows up on the phone call, which is why it’s important to you that everything that you put out be written in your voice so that you never have someone that learns of you on the internet, however it is that they do it.
They booked that consultation call. And like, I feel like after looking at my website and looking at my Instagram, if someone showed up for a consultation call and I was like, hello, how are you
Ashley: Yeah.
Colie: I would love to chat with you about what Dubsado can do for your systems. Do you have time for that today?
They’d be like, who the
Ashley: Who
Colie: this? And where’s that woman that was on the
Ashley: Right.
She, that ain’t her. Yeah. No, 100%. Like, I always want to make sure that, you know, in my email copy and every, you know, everything, it’s, it looks and feels and flows the same. I think a lot of times people want to just. I want the easy button, right? They want to be able to just plug and play things and yeah, that works to an extent, but it’s not going to help you close the deal.
It’s not going to help you keep that client either, right? Like everything that I do, I’m going to look through the lens of yes. I want my full experience to be. Showstopping. I want them to love me, but I want them to want to come back to, you know, when they go to launch a new offer or implement a new process.
I want them to think of Ashley first when it comes to having to go update Dubsado or any other tools. don’t want them to be like, man, I didn’t like this with her. Let me go find some other expert, right? You know, and it’s the same way. Like you said with the photography, like you. Your client, she was a repeat client, and she already knew.
I need Colie to come take my baby’s pictures, you know?
Colie: I felt like at that point, maybe I emphasized a little too much because my clients know that I do a lot of traveling. I mean, I travel for sessions. I also travel for like
Ashley: Mm hmm.
Colie: and I travel for those kinds of things. And so my clients know, like, sometimes I’ll be like, Oh, Colie, we’re having a baby in March.
Okay. Well, I’m sorry. I’m already at
two conferences. Like if you’re okay with me, potentially not being there for your fresh 48. We will just do an in-home if I happen to miss it. And unfortunately I’ve had to tell a few people that because you know, they contacted me late in the pregnancy and I never try to make them feel bad.
And in some cases I’m like, listen, this conference or whatever I’m going to is actually not super important. So if you happen to go into labor and I am in Dallas, or I am in Chicago or Philadelphia, or wherever it is. As long as I know that you went into labor, like, let’s say on a Wednesday, I mean, I can make it back to Colorado on Thursday to take photos of you before you leave the hospital.
I can’t be there for your birth. I don’t
have a private jet. If you got one, I can borrow, holler at me. But otherwise, I mean, I can make it to the hospital before you leave, but otherwise, you know, we’ll just do it, you know. at your house. And so that’s one of those things that I make very clear during the booking process.
I make it very clear in my contract. I also make it very clear in the emails that they get preparing them for their hospital newborn session. You know, please remember the moment that you go to the hospital, this is my phone number. I need you to text me to let me know that they have admitted you so that I know to expect a call from you.
Sometime in the next 24 hours and I got a, I mean, I don’t have to drop everything for a fresh 48. I have to drop everything for a birth. That’s a whole different story, but for a fresh 48, I mean, I got a little leeway. I got time to make sure that my kid is taken care of. Although she’s 13 now, Ashley, now I just
Ashley: I get
Colie: like, bye.
Mom’s got to go to the hospital. I’ll be back.
Ashley: Yeah, no, I definitely get it
Colie: Ashley, this has been amazing. I think maybe you should come on the podcast again,
Ashley: girl I’m happy I’m
Colie: Cause I love having conversations
with you.
Ashley: I know we can geek out over all the things so I am always happy To come and geek out over
Colie: To come hop back on with me. All right. So why don’t you tell, I mean, you said the name of your business at the beginning of the podcast, but why don’t you tell everyone where they can find you on the
Ashley: Yes, I come over to the Instagram streets. You can find me at solution. integrators with an S at the end, or over on my website at solutionintegrators. us. I am always talking about. Tech and biz processes and systems and boundaries and new shiny things and life. Everything in between. So I’m always happy to connect and I’m, I also like to believe I’m an open book.
One of my brand values is transparency. So I’m not gonna, you know, gatekeep something that’s working well for me. You know, I do require to be paid for actual implementation, but I am always happy to, you know, share knowledge, share resources. If I don’t know it, I probably know somebody that does, so I’m happy to send you their way too.
Colie: I feel like, okay, I was going to end, but I feel like we should mention something after you said that, because one of the most heartbreaking things that I hear is when someone has tried to solve something themselves for hours, they’ve gone to the Dubsado tutorials. They’ve asked in the Facebook group.
Well, maybe that’s not true. Cause if they’ve asked in the Facebook group, one of us
Ashley: probably
Colie: them, but. Yeah. They’re like doing all this stuff. Right. And it’s taken hours of their life. And then they just drop into my, you know, Instagram DMs. And they’re like, Colie, I’m really trying to figure this out.
And I solved their problem in like three minutes. And they’re like, Oh my gosh, like, thank you so much. I’ve wasted hours. And I’m like, why? I’m like, they’re like, well, you know, I don’t want to bother you. Okay. Listen, me spending three minutes out of my day to type up a response for you in Instagram is not wasting my time, especially if it’s saving you hours.
Like now, if I have to, like you said, I expect to be paid for implementation, but use that Ashley, that’s a good one. But. Like if I have to actually go research something that’s different if I have to send you like if I have to get on a
computer to like type you like a
Ashley: a loom video or something. Yeah.
Colie: exactly.
But like most of the time if you ask me a question. I can answer you in just a few minutes and whether or not it’s a yes, you can do that in Dubsado or no, you can’t so you can stop wasting your time. I mean myself or Ashley happy to do those things because we don’t want to see any business owners wasting their time trying to figure something out.
If we can just give you a quick yes or no answer in seconds, most of the
time.
Ashley: Literally seconds.
Colie: Yeah. Seconds. I mean, Ashley, it’s been good chatting with you guys. I was serious. We are going to invite Ashley back on the podcast sometime in 2024, but that is it for this episode. See you next time.
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