To get the most out of this episode, make sure you download 4 Workflows Every Photographer Needs Guide. This guide is the perfect way to implement each of the four workflows discussed in this episode, with additional tips and guidance for each workflow. Grab your FREE copy below!
Are you seamlessly serving your clients from inquiry to project completion? If you’re using a CRM like Dubsado, you can build workflows that make it easy! In today’s episode, I’m sharing four workflows that every entrepreneur needs in their CRM and what to include in each!
The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discuss how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.
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Here are the highlights…
[1:10] The 4 Workflows Every Entrepreneur Needs in Their CRM
[2:01] #1 – Inquiry Workflow: Intake Form, Scheduling Tool, Automated Lead Response
[3:35] What to Include in Your Automated Lead Response: Thank You, Visuals and Info, and Next Steps
[6:58] Scheduling a Call
[7:35] #2 – Booking Workflow: Path of Least Resistance – Choose Offer, Sign Contract, & Pay the Invoice
[8:55] Power in the Followup
[10:07] #3 – Onboarding Workflow: Questionnaires, Prep Guides, Etc.
[11:42] #4 – Service and Delivery Workflow: Connect, Thank, Deliver, & Request Feedback
[12:53] Recap
Connect with Colie on Instagram
Mentioned in this Episode
Review the Transcript:
Hello and welcome back to the Business First Creatives Podcast. On today’s episode, we are literally gonna talk about my favorite thing, which is four workflows that I think every entrepreneur needs inside of their CRM. Now, full disclosure, you guys all know that I have an online course for photographers called the CRM Blueprint, as well as a VIP day offer for any entrepreneur..
What I am telling you today is the exact same things that I teach in the course and that I create for my entrepreneur, v i p day clients. Remember guys, what I do for you is not something that you can’t do for yourself. Anybody with enough time that wants to set up their own systems can do it. What you get from me when you hire me or you join my class, is you actually get my eyeballs on it.
You get me as your tech support, and you get all of the templates that you need to create it. But that doesn’t mean that if you don’t have the budget to hire out your system set up, or that you are not a course person, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it yourself. So I am going to outline the four workflows that.
Recommend every entrepreneur has. Okay, let’s get started. First, I just wanna tell you what they are. Just an overview so that you know what to expect. There are four workflows that I think every entrepreneur needs inside of their crm, and that is an inquiry workflow, a booking workflow, an onboarding workflow, and then a service and delivery workflow.
Some people, depending on what is entailed in your service and what you do in your delivery, you might wanna separate those into two different workflows. But what I’m telling you is what I actually teach inside the CRM blueprint. And so that’s what we’re talking about today. So now that I’ve given you the four workflows that you have, let’s talk about what goes inside of each one of those workflows.
So first of all, the inquiry work. Now your inquiry workflow has one job and one job only to qualify your leads for whatever your offer is. So if you are a photographer and you offer family newborn sessions and someone inquires about a brand session, the entire purpose of the inquiry workflow is to either make them a custom offer or to get them funneled into the offers that you already.
So there’s a couple of key decisions that you have to make inside of the inquiry workflow. First of all, if you are using a CRM like Dubsado and it has a scheduler feature, the question is how are people going to come into this workflow? Are they going to fill out a lead capture form or a contact form on your website, or are they going to be able to call to schedule consultation call directly from your website. That is totally up to you, but that is a decision that you need to make before you create that workflow. The most important thing that you will have inside of this workflow is an automated lead response. Let me say it one more time for the people in the back.
This is the most important part of this workflow. A automated lead response email. Now, I have talked about this in other avenues, but in case you’ve never heard me rant about this before, that email needs to have some key pieces of information. Number one, it needs to thank them for contacting you. Yes, guys, you do actually have to say thank you for inquiring about my services.
The second thing that this email needs to do is give them something else to read. or look at to keep them interested until you answer them personally. So if I was gonna talk about what I do as a photographer, if someone is inquiring about a newborn session, I will send them a few galleries that are newborn sessions.
I might send them something that says why an in-home session is better than a studio session. Cuz guys, I don’t have a studio and I don’t do babies in a basket. So I mean, that’s important. The third item is you must tell them what comes next. If they should expect to hear from you in 24 hours, tell them that.
If you want them to automatically schedule a call, give them an avenue to do that, But don’t just send out a response without telling them what comes next. This is part of managing expectations of your leads. And then once they book, Of your clients. Okay, So those are the aspects that should be included inside of this automated lead response.
And guys, did you hear the word automated? Cuz I’ve said it like five times now. It needs to be sent automatically after someone fills out your lead capture form. Now, depending on your crm, it can be very custom or it has to be generic. Please do your research and look at the CRM that you are currently using to see what is possible inside of Do Sodo.
If you have a workflow question, you can actually send one kind of email if they’re interested in offer number one, which for me would be like a family photography session or if they’re interested in newborns, I can differentiate that email to have different information for them depending on what service they have already indicated that they are interested in.
Now what else is contained in this inquiry workflow is totally up to you. If you do consultation calls, please send them a scheduler. Let them know what the process is, how long the call will take, and it’s really important guys, I tell this to everyone. You want to make sure that clients know, or I guess they’re leads at this point.
You want to make sure that they know. What the goal of the call is because I am very upfront with people. It is really not a sales call. It is an alignment call. It is to make sure that whatever offer you have indicated that you are interested in, I give you all of the information that you need in order to make a decision about buying that offer, and I have to make sure that you’re a good fit for my business Now.
I don’t care what you offer guys, you’re probably not offering everything to everyone. So yes, it is important that you make sure that you are offering a service that they are interested in buying. Because again, guys, I don’t take people outside and photograph them in front of the mountains. So if you want a family session where you want styling advice and you wanna go outside and you want that wall worthy, everybody look at the camera and smile at you.
I’m not the one , so if you didn’t get that from my website, I absolutely need to make sure that you get that from the consultation call so that we don’t waste anyone’s time. Okay, let’s talk about scheduling that call. You wanna give them the opportunity to schedule the call in the most automated way, if you can.
And if you have a CRM like Dubsado that has a scheduler, you can do that right in your crm. But if you are still using a CRM that doesn’t have a scheduler, don’t worry. You can use something like Acuity or Calendly to do. Now, depending on whether or not your scheduler is inside of your CRM or it’s external, that actually makes a difference in what kind of automations you can do after.
That is why I recommend that you move the booking process to its own workflow. So let’s talk about that workflow. Now you are booking work. Has one goal, guys, to get you hired after you’ve done the inquiry workflow. If they are qualified, if you are aligned, if you offer a service that they are interested in buying, you move them to the next step, which is the booking workflow inside of the booking workflow.
You want to send them the offer with the least path of resistance. I talk about booking friction a lot, guys. It is not something mythical. It is something real, and I really want everyone to eliminate booking friction as much as they possibly can. That means sending them an avenue where they can choose their.
Sign their contract and pay you money all in one swoop. No more sending multiple emails with a contract. And then after they sign the contract, you send the invoice or you tell them they can pay you via Venmo, please, for the love of Jesus, stop doing that. I want everyone to use whatever proposal or quote system your CRM has.
The magic of your CRM is what you do after you make the offer. The rest of your booking workflow is designed to do the follow up. Guys, the money is in the follow up. Please do not ignore, you know, reaching back out to people who do not book you immediately. Not everyone makes an immediate purchasing decision.
That does not mean that they are not interested in your offer. That does not mean that, you know, it’s an automatic no. Some people need the follow. So I always recommend that you do a couple of different follow ups, however many, and whether or not they can be automated depends on your crm.
If you are using Dubsado, it has a feature where the workflow will watch the proposal, and if your lead does not fill it out, you can send automatic follow ups. You can’t do that in every crm, guys, I’m sorry, it’s just plain facts, but if you are using Dodo, you can do that. If you are using a different crm, please look to see what kind of automated follow ups you can.
Now, I always recommend sending one follow up that’s just straight up. Hey, in case this got lost in your inbox, here it is again. Then you might wanna do a more personal one that talks about things that you did on the consultation call. Talks about things that you know might help them make that purchasing decision.
After the booking workflow, we’ve got the onboarding workflow. That is where if the person has decided to work with you and they have completed the proposal, they have signed the contract, they have paid you the money, they will move on to the onboarding workflow inside of this onboarding workflow. This is like the area where most people deviate depending on what kind of offer you are making.
So guys, if you. Are someone that does a lot of prep with your clients. This is the workflow where you are going to send them questionnaires. You are going to send them a prep guide. You are going to gather any information that you need from that client in order to perform your service. Some of them will be automated, some of them will not.
The one thing that I wanna say in here, again, check your CRM to see what’s possible, but end of sodo, if you send your client a client questionnaire and they do not fill it out, you can send them a reminder. You can also expire the form so that if they, you know, if they, if you need to make sure that they have made a final decision on whatever decisions they’re making, you can actually set it to where after a certain date, they cannot edit it anymore.
Okay guys, so these are things that are very specific to your cr. These are the kinds of things that you want inside of your onboarding workflow. I will say one more thing. If you are someone who needs to nurture your clients before the service, you need to help them make decisions, Tell them what’s possible.
All of those kind of emails belong in this onboarding workflow. Then we come to service. So your service and delivery workflow is where you are going to connect with them after you’ve performed the service to thank them, deliver anything that you need to deliver, and then ask for feedback. I know some of y’all still out here scared.
Don’t wanna ask clients what they thought of your service guys feedback. Is Golden for number one, making sure that your service is great. Number two, for making sure that you can pull those testimonials and pull what your clients are actually saying about your service and using it in all of your messaging.
If you are not currently doing this, please stop this recording. Go over to your cr. Create a feedback questionnaire and send it to like your last five clients. Okay? Five. You could even make it the last five clients that you were happy working with. I mean, that’s the beauty of your business. You don’t necessarily have to send the feedback form to everyone.
You can just send it to who you want. And guys, those four workflows are what I recommend that every entrepreneur have in their business. So one more time, I’m gonna give you a recap. The inquiry work. Is to give them an automatic response, letting them know that you got their inquiry and then taking the next step to qualify them.
Your booking workflow is reserved for those that you have deemed are ready for your service, are aligned with your service, have expressed interest in purchasing your offer. Then you move on to the onboarding workflow for those people who have purchased the offer and are now clients, like booked clients, people who paid you actual American dollars or you know, whatever currency you have,
And then last but not least, we have the service and delivery workflow, which is where you send anything having to do with the service. You send them a thank you, they’re deliverables, and then you ask for the feedback.
Now guys, if that all sounds good, please remember, I have two offers that can help you get this done. First, I have my CRM Blueprint, which is a Dubsado implementation course, specifically for photographers who want help, but are not ready to just turn it over for a full done for you service. and the second offer that I have is open to any creative entrepreneur, and that is my Dubsado VIP experience.
You can find more information about both of those offers at coliejames.com. All right, guys, that’s it for this episode. I hope that this has been helpful. I hope that this gives you a general idea of the important workflows that I think every entrepreneur should have inside their CRM. If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up on Instagram in the dms.
Until next time, thanks guys.
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