Your Dubsado Inquiry Workflow — Or Why You Might Not Need One

Before we get started — hi, I’m Colie James, Certified Dubsado Specialist and host of the Business-First Creatives podcast. This is post two in my Dubsado Workflows series. If you haven’t read Dubsado Workflows: Plan Before You Build, start there — it covers the framework behind everything I’m about to walk you through.

Setting up your Dubsado inquiry workflow is usually the first thing photographers tackle. It’s also the one I see most often doing the least work — which is a shame, because this is likely your first impression for a one-on-one conversation with a potential client. What you do here sets the tone for the rest of the experience. Do it well and it’s the first step toward getting them booked and building a long-term relationship.

So before we talk about what goes in a Dubsado inquiry workflow, let’s talk about whether you need one — because depending on how you run your business, you might not.

Your Contact Form Is Your First Qualifying Tool

Most photographers treat their inquiry form like a formality. Name, email, date, maybe a “how did you hear about us.” Submit.

That form is doing almost nothing for you.

Technically, your first impression is your whole website — your portfolio, your Instagram, everything that got them to this point. But when someone decides that something you’ve put out in the world caught their eye and they’re ready to reach out, the contact form is where the one-on-one relationship actually begins. It tells them — before they’ve ever spoken to you — whether you’re organized, intentional, and worth what you charge.

And it needs to be easy. Not 12 questions. Not a questionnaire disguised as a contact form. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes and enter your world. If they have to stop and think for more than two minutes about how to answer a question, save it for the consultation call or the client questionnaire after they’ve paid you.

What your contact form should include:

The basics — first name, last name, email, phone number. For photographers, the session date or timeframe. And critically: how did you hear about me? This isn’t just for your ego. Dubsado tracks lead sources and shows you how much revenue came from each one. If you’re spending hours a week on Instagram and none of your bookings are coming from there, that’s information worth having.

A segmenting question. If you offer more than one type of session, you should not be sending the same email to a wedding inquiry that you send to a family or branding inquiry. A simple dropdown — “what type of session are you interested in?” — lets you route people into the right workflow automatically. In Dubsado, this is called the workflow question, and it’s only available on lead capture forms. Each answer can trigger a completely different automated response. It’s one of the most underused features in the platform.

One or two questions that help you help them. Not a full intake. Just enough to tell you who you’re dealing with before you respond. Good options include: when is the last time you had professional photos taken? Is there something specific happening in your business or life right now that’s driving this? These questions do two things — they give you useful information, and they plant a seed in the client’s mind about why they actually need this, which makes the conversation easier before it starts.

The 1-10 question. On a scale of one to ten, how ready are you to book? I’ll be honest — the number they give you rarely predicts whether they actually book. I’ve had people say ten and ghost me. I’ve had people say two and pay me within 48 hours. One woman contacted me from Detroit because my SEO had her finding me in Denver — she gave me a two, we got on a call, and two days later she’d paid me. The reason I ask it isn’t to filter people out. It’s to get them thinking about where they actually are in the decision-making process. That self-awareness makes the conversation that follows more honest.

Copy above the form that pre-qualifies. Before they even start typing. I used to have a line on my contact form that said: before you hit submit — if you’re looking for posed portraits, I’m not your photographer. Not rude. Efficient. It saved us both time. If your prices are on your website and someone is still regularly surprised by them, the page around your form isn’t doing its job.

One rule for every question on your form: if they’re going to give you more than three words as an answer, make it a long-answer field, not a short one. Short answer fields just keep scrolling to the right and the person can’t see what they already typed. If the answer needs room, give it room.

What about people who don’t come through the contact form?

They text you. They DM you on Instagram. They email you directly. It happens. But all roads need to lead back to your CRM — because that’s how every client gets a consistent experience regardless of how they found you. The moment the conversation starts moving toward booking, get them into Dubsado. You can tell them: I’m going to add you into my system and it’ll send you an email with everything you need. If you don’t already have their email, that’s when you ask.

The Two People Who Inquire With You

Every inquiry comes from one of two people.

The first one has already done the work. She’s seen your portfolio, she knows your prices, she’s watched your Instagram for six months and she just needs someone to tell her what to do next. She is ready to pay you. Do not make her jump through hoops she doesn’t need.

The second one is still deciding. Maybe she’s interviewing multiple photographers. Maybe she loved your work but isn’t sure she can afford you. Maybe she just has questions that need answering before she’s going to hand over a deposit. She needs to feel connected to you before she commits.

The problem is you don’t know which one is filling out your form. So your inquiry process has to account for both — but which path you build in Dubsado depends a lot on which one you see more of. This is really the core question of how to qualify photography leads: not just who you want to work with, but how you design the process that finds them.

If your website is doing its job and most of your inquiries are from people who are essentially already sold, you can build a very lean process. If you regularly get people who need more convincing, you need a process that can handle that gracefully without requiring you to get on a call with everyone.

The Four Paths — Pick the One That Fits

There is no single right way to run your Dubsado inquiry workflow for photographers. There are four paths that work, depending on your business. Two of them skip the inquiry workflow entirely.

Path 1: Embed a scheduler directly on your contact page

This one skips the inquiry workflow completely — and I want to say that clearly because a lot of people don’t realize it’s an option.

Instead of a contact form that leads to an email that leads to a scheduler link, you just put the scheduler directly on your contact page. Someone decides they want to talk to you. They pick a day and time. Done.

The Dubsado scheduler handles the confirmation email and all reminders automatically. No workflow needed. No emails to write. No follow-up sequence to build. The call itself does the qualifying.

This works really well if you’re not getting a lot of misaligned leads — meaning most people who come to you are already a reasonable fit. It also works well if you’ve found that a lot of people fill out your contact form and then never actually book the call. Removing that extra step gets them closer to you faster.

Where it gets complicated: if you’re a wedding photographer and availability is the first real question, you probably want to know their date before they get on your calendar. Same if you regularly get inquiries that are clearly out of budget or out of scope — you’d want to see the form first so you can filter before investing time in a call.

If you’re not sure how Dubsado’s scheduler works, this post covers the setup.

Path 2: Contact form → Dubsado discovery call

The traditional path. They fill out your form, you review it, you decide if you want to move forward, and you invite them to book a call.

This is where an inquiry workflow actually earns its place. The workflow sends the immediate auto-response, delivers the scheduler link, and follows up automatically if they haven’t booked yet. The call does the qualifying. Once you’ve had the call and you’re ready to make an offer, that’s when the inquiry workflow ends and the booking workflow begins.

A few things that make discovery calls actually work:

Guide the conversation but let them talk. When you ask the right questions, people will talk themselves into hiring you. I had a sales call recently where the person told me at the start she had no intention of hiring me. By the end of the call she’d made her first payment. I didn’t convince her of anything. I just asked questions and let her keep talking.

Ask them what drew them to your work. This isn’t for them — it’s for you. The answers people give you are marketing gold. They’ll tell you things about your own work and positioning that you never would have thought to say yourself.

Get them to identify what their goal is. You probably already know what they need, but let them say it. And then steer the conversation toward what that goal actually requires, even if it’s not exactly what they think they want.

Close the call by telling them what comes next — and then do it without asking permission. After a great call, don’t email and ask if they’d like you to send over a proposal. Just send it. Tell them on the call: right when we hang up, I’m sending over the proposal. It covers everything we talked about and walks you through exactly how to confirm your spot. If you want bonus points, tell them you’ll check in the next day to make sure it arrived. Now there’s no surprise when you do either of those things.

And if no red flags have come up — book them. Don’t ignore the red flags either. After 13+ years in business, I will tell you: the people you’re iffy on almost always end up being the ones who are problematic. Trust that instinct.

Path 3: Contact form → video ask → make the offer

This is the async alternative to a discovery call. They fill out your form, you review it, and instead of inviting them to schedule a call, you respond with a short video — introducing yourself, walking through your offer, answering the questions you know they’re probably going to have.

They can reply with a video, audio, or text if they have follow-up questions. You respond. When you’re both ready, you make the offer.

VideoAsk is the tool most of my clients use for this. It’s not a Dubsado feature — it’s a separate tool — but it integrates well enough and it’s worth knowing about if sales calls feel like a poor use of your time or your clients genuinely can’t carve out 20 minutes to get on a call with you.

One thing I’ll say about async qualifying: answer the question they actually asked. If someone leads with a pricing question, answer it. Don’t sidestep. Don’t bury it. The photographers and creatives who do this well are the ones who treat every video response like a real conversation, not a sales script.

If you want to go deeper on async video as a sales tool, this episode with Carolyn Leasure is worth a listen. And if you’re wondering which videos are actually worth creating, this post breaks down four specific ones.

Path 4: Contact form → straight to booking

Some people just need the next step handed to them. If your website is doing its job — your portfolio is strong, your pricing is visible, your process is clear — there are inquirers who don’t need a call. They don’t need a video. They need a proposal.

This path skips the inquiry workflow entirely. Your auto-response acknowledges the inquiry and moves them directly toward booking. Everything from that point forward is the booking workflow’s job.

I’ve seen photographers test this directly — sending some inquiries to a call scheduler and others straight to a proposal — and find no meaningful difference in booking rates. When your proposal is well built and your work speaks for itself, a lot of people will just book.

What Goes in the Inquiry Workflow (Paths 2 and 3)

If you’re on Path 1 or Path 4, you don’t need to build an inquiry workflow. Skip to the next post in this series.

If you’re on Path 2 or 3, here’s what the workflow actually contains.

An immediate auto-response. The moment someone submits your form, they get an email. Not in 10 minutes. Not when you approve it. Immediately. When someone fills out your contact form, you have their complete and undivided attention. Don’t waste it.

At minimum, this email should thank them for the inquiry and tell them exactly what happens next. But if you stop there, you’re leaving something on the table. Give them at least one thing to sink their teeth into while they wait to hear from you — a client testimonial, a case study, a sample gallery, a blog post that’s relevant to what they’re inquiring about. Something that reinforces why they reached out in the first place and reminds them who you are before they get distracted by the next thing in their inbox.

If you’re going to send them straight to a scheduler link or a video ask, do that here. If you need a day to review their inquiry before you respond personally, tell them that — and tell them when they should expect to hear from you. What they should never do is fill out your form and wonder if it went anywhere.

1-2 follow-ups. If they haven’t taken action after a day or two, a follow-up goes out. I’d do one automated follow-up, maybe a second one sent manually if you want to personalize it. My own first follow-up leans a little cheeky — something like “it’s been 24 hours and I haven’t heard from you, are you still interested?” and then I link to a case study or podcast episode that speaks directly to the thing they said they needed. That combination — a little personality plus something genuinely useful — converts better than a bland check-in every time. Always include the scheduler link or video ask link directly in the email. Never make them go digging for it.

The handoff. This is the part nobody plans for. The inquiry workflow ends when you’ve qualified someone and you’re ready to make them an offer. That decision point needs to trigger the booking workflow — either automatically based on an action they take, or manually when you go in and start it yourself. If you don’t plan the handoff, that’s where people fall through. They had a great call, you’re excited to work together, and then nothing happens because the next step wasn’t built.

The Mistakes I See Most Often

I audit a lot of Dubsado accounts. The inquiry workflow is usually where I find the most low-hanging fruit.

The auto-response goes out on a delay. I was in a photographer’s account recently and her auto-response was set to send 10 minutes after the form was submitted. She thought it was going out immediately. It wasn’t. A 10-minute delay on an inquiry response is long enough for someone to move on. Set it to immediate.

Appointment reminders are set up in the workflow instead of the scheduler. This one trips people up constantly. If you’re sending discovery call reminders from inside your workflow using appointment smart fields, they won’t work — those fields only work when the email is sent directly from the scheduler. Your reminders need to live in the scheduler settings, not in the workflow. This is one of those things that looks fine when you build it and then silently fails when a real client goes through.

No follow-ups at all. One auto-response and then silence. If someone doesn’t book the call within a day or two, most photographers just wait. That lead isn’t necessarily gone — life happened, she got distracted, she meant to come back. One follow-up with the scheduler link directly in the email is usually enough to bring her back.

Asking permission to make the offer. After a great discovery call, don’t email and ask if they’d like you to send the proposal. Just send it. You had the call. You both want to move forward. Put the next step in their hands and let them take it when they’re ready. Nobody needs to give you permission to offer them your services.

One workflow trying to do both inquiry and booking. I see this constantly — a single workflow that handles the auto-response, the discovery call scheduler, the follow-ups, and then somehow also the proposal, the contract, and the payment reminders. When something goes wrong in the middle — and something always does — you can’t tell where it broke. Keep them separate.

Ready to Build Your Dubsado Inquiry Workflow?

Pick your path first. Then build for it. Knowing how to set up your Dubsado inquiry workflow starts with that decision — not with opening the workflow builder.

If you’re not sure which path fits how you actually work — or you’ve had an inquiry workflow running for a while and you’re not sure it’s doing what you think — a Client Experience Audit is the fastest way to find out. I go through your account in real time, the same way I described above, and tell you exactly what’s working and what isn’t. You might need a small tweak. You might need a full rebuild. Most people are surprised by which one it is.

If you’re ready to build the whole thing properly — inquiry through offboarding — Systems in Session is where we do that together.

Not ready for either yet? The Workflows and Automation Guide gives you the framework to map your process before you build anything.

Next up in the series: the booking workflow — what happens from the moment you decide to make the offer to the moment they’ve paid their deposit.

FAQ for Dubsado Inquiry Workflows

Do I need an inquiry workflow in Dubsado? Not necessarily. If you embed a scheduler directly on your contact page, the scheduler handles confirmation and reminders automatically — no workflow needed. If you send people straight to a proposal after they inquire, that’s a booking workflow, not an inquiry one. You only need an actual inquiry workflow if there’s a qualifying step between the form submission and the offer — a discovery call, a video ask conversation, or a review process that takes more than one touchpoint.

What should my Dubsado inquiry auto-response say? At minimum: acknowledge the inquiry, tell them what happens next, and give them the next step — whether that’s a scheduler link, a video ask prompt, or a heads up that you’ll be in touch within a specific timeframe. It should sound like you. It should not sound like a form letter. And it should go out immediately, not on a delay.

How many follow-up emails should I send after an inquiry? One or two. The first one is automated and goes out if they haven’t taken action within a day or two. The second one is optional — you can send it manually if you want to personalize it. Always include the direct link to the next step so they don’t have to go looking for it.

What is the Dubsado workflow question and should I use it? The workflow question is a special field only available on Dubsado lead capture forms. It looks like a dropdown, but each option can automatically trigger a different workflow when selected. If you work with multiple session types or offer different services, it’s worth using — it means a newborn inquiry automatically gets a newborn-specific response instead of a generic one. If you only offer one type of service, you probably don’t need it.

Can I skip the discovery call in my inquiry process? Yes, and plenty of photographers do. The discovery call is one qualifying tool. Video ask, a well-built proposal with a video walkthrough, and a strong contact form are others. What matters is that you have some way of confirming someone is a good fit before they pay you — the format is up to you. If your website is already doing the qualifying work, you may not need a call at all.

What’s the difference between a lead capture form and a contact form in Dubsado? In Dubsado, a lead capture form is embedded directly on your website and creates a new lead in your account when someone submits it. A contact form is a Dubsado form that lives inside an existing project. For your inquiry process, you want a lead capture — it’s what allows Dubsado to automatically create the project and start a workflow when someone reaches out.