What’s the Best Way To Set Up Your CRM? CRM Blueprint vs. Systems in Session with Megan Norman

Colie: Guys, sometimes you get a client and they’re in your realm. You know they’re in your atmosphere and you just can’t seem to get rid of them. Like I would say it’s like a fungus, but I feel like that would be being super rude to Meghan and she’s laughing at me hysterically. Guys, I’m usually not this rude.

This is one of my long-term clients that is joining me on the podcast today, and Megan is not like fungus, but she definitely doesn’t go away. Megan,

welcome to the podcast.

Megan: thanks for having me.

Colie: Okay, so today is gonna be a little mix of like a case study guys with also answering some very specific questions that I have been getting recently about Systems in session. And I figured that Megan was the perfect person to bring on because again, she has been in my world as first a blueprint student, and then as like a one-on-one hired me for an audit. She went into systems in session and gave her entire. Business, a glow up from that perspective. And now she’s in my retainer program.

So Megan, I wanna start way back in 2021 when you first found me. How did you find the blueprint and what were your systems like before that?

So I found you, I’m pretty sure, because I listened to Anneme’s podcast and I didn’t realize that Dubsado could do all the things that you claimed Dubsado could do, because I was just using it for invoices and contracts. And so I, at that point, I believe was changing over to simple sales or as I, I was considering doing simple sales and I was like, wow.

If Dubsado can do all this for me, it’s going to make it that much easier. So I found it, but I found it after you had closed it, which like this heart sinking feeling because I was like, I finally found it, now I can’t do it. And I think it was only a few days after you closed it, but I didn’t know that.

And you graciously let me come into the program and you changed my world. Had no idea that Dubsado could do everything, and let’s be honest, you continue to change my world whenever I talk to you about Dubsado because I only know the tip iceberg.

I mean, I feel like five years in, you now know a little bit more than the tip of the iceberg since being in my world. But also before we hit record, I realized you’ve actually had Dubsado longer than me, which I did not know initially.

Megan: I know and I wasn’t. I just, I really didn’t realize how much I could do.

Colie: I mean, I, I do tend to wow people when I’m like, your proposal could look like this, or, did you know that you don’t have to manually send this email? I, I just, I feel like at this point I continue to be shocked at how little people understand that their CRM and in particular Dubsado can do for them. I’m like, have you ever listened to my podcast?

Have you ever been on my blog? Like, there’s lots and lots of things that I show you that Dubsado is capable of. And of course, I mostly talk to the photographers. how I usually wanna wow you guys is yes, but when you ask the client to pay you $1,200, can you show them how awesome your photographs are at the exact same time? And of course, if you were only using it for invoicing and contracts initially, you really are like those people that I talk about all the time. You’re paying $40 a month and all you’re doing is sending an invoice. And it’s always like, but wow, do you know how much bang for your buck you could get if you just, you know, took a couple hours, took a couple days, and just set up some of the systems that Dubsado will help you do?

Megan: Well, not only that, but it just, it levels up your client experience. So not, I mean, I think clients don’t even, they don’t even understand all the things that you can offer them. So to be able to offer them a seamless client experience from start to finish, it really is a game changer. And then with systems in session, I feel like it elevated it even more because not only am I giving a good client experience, but it’s making my life so much easier because it’s doing certain things that I was constantly having to go back and.

Colie: Yeah. So guys, we’re gonna go back to when she first took the blueprint, because way back then, the blueprint was a very different course than it is now. Originally, the blueprint was more like a group program. I mean, I sold it as an online course, but it had weekly office hours. It had. Basically unlimited support inside of a Facebook group.

It was very different. And every time I told somebody it was an online course and then I told them what was included, like all of the business level coaches were all like, that’s not a course, that’s a group program. And I’m like, yeah, but as photographers, we don’t call things group programs. Now it is self-paced. Now it is to the point to where all of the things that, clients and students like Megan used to ask me in the course are all covered very thoroughly to where you don’t need my kind of support like you did originally when I was building out the course. But Megan is one of the people that showed up to weekly office hours with a list of questions, and that has not changed.

She shows up to our weekly coaching calls with a list of questions to address. I mean, she is the same person that she was five years ago, but I am. Helping her in a very different way now than I was originally in the blueprint. But so you showed up to all the calls for a while and then like happens with most students.

You kind of fell off because your systems were in a good place. You didn’t really need to come and ask questions anymore. And then about a year later. You actually came back into the Facebook group and started asking questions again, and that is also, at that point, it was completely normal because after a year of using your systems, you were at a point where you were like, okay, like this is working, but can I make it work a little bit better? And so you did that. And then I don’t think that I really heard from you in like a professional capacity for a few years

and. 

Megan: I was like, that fungus like you were talking about, I was still listening. I was still watching. I just wasn’t interacting.

Colie: That’s true. And then this summer, because you are on my email list, I did a sale on audits and I think you were the first person to grab one

and. 

Megan: Oh, because.

Colie: I know that’s your personality too though, Megan, but she grabbed, I think the first audit, and at first I was like, oh, I wonder why she needs an audit. Because guys, this is definitely like a self-limiting belief that I have. I think that if you work with me once, and I don’t even care what capacity it is that you’re just good for the rest of your life.

Like, and I know this is not true, but I somehow tell myself that this is true all the time, but so Megan bought the first audit. She filled out the form, she let me have access to her Dubsado, and then literally I went into her Dubsado and I was like, wow, this is bad. I mean, and I didn’t really expect it. And so, you know, I’m going through and I’m looking at it and I get, I mean, guys, when I say it’s bad, you know, Megan and I can joke about this, but I was like, there were so many things that I saw that I was like, I don’t know why she’s doing this. And I would literally say that in her video.

I’m like, Megan, I, I don’t know why you’re doing this. Like, explain to me why this is the case instead of this. And the truth is, before I even delivered the audit report to her, I had done another email where I was like, Hey, I have this program called Systems in Session. It’s a 60 day program, but I need someone to test a 30 day container.

Is anybody interested? And again, Megan, like her normal self, was the very first per, I mean, I think it was like an hour after I sent the email, she’s like, oh my God, tell me how much and how it goes.

Megan: It’s true. I, because I knew, well, so I don’t know if Maddie said it on her social, because you guys had just worked together for, I don’t know what you guys had done something for a brandy. Okay. A webinar. And so she said something about how much. You just gave everything a glow up and like your system, her systems were working better than ever, and I was like, Ugh.

It just gave me pause because I’m like, oh, I’m having to go in so much still. I’m still having to approve things. I feel like she could make my life a lot easier and spoiler, she did.

Colie: So she joined the 30 day container before I had even had a chance to deliver her audit report. And then I sent her her audit report. And I think later that day you were like, I mean, Colie, do I really have to answer these questions? ’cause again, guys, I was asking more questions than I think I ever have in an audit report because I was like, like I just, I don’t understand your choices. Like, it was a very weird thing where I’m like, you have the blueprint course, but you are doing things very differently than I taught you in that course, and I just don’t understand why. So she responded and she was like, do I have to answer these questions? I’m like, no, we’re gonna take care of all of it when we start on August 26th.

So, you know, just, just file it wherever you wanna file it, and don’t worry, we’re gonna take care of it. So what did it feel like when you first came into Systems in session? Was it what I, described or like do you feel like the 30 days was enough to get the things done that were not only on your audit list, but I guess other things that perhaps I didn’t look at inside of that audit?

Megan: So the audit was for one workflow. So my main offer is family. So I had to do an audit of family, but I have multiple offers. So my goal when we started for the 30 days, not knowing like just how it would go, given the fact that I’m in Minnesota and it’s busy season, like how, how much could I accomplish in 30 days?

Because, if you can’t tell, I like to get the most bang for my buck if I’m going to invest in something. Hence why I was going back into Blueprint asking lots of questions because she, Colie is hands down, in my opinion, the most knowledgeable when it comes to this. So it’s easy because if you ask her the question, she knows the answer and gives it to you and you move on your way.

So with 30 days, you did at one point tell me how many calls and tickets I had, but I had a lot because I actually tackled all five of my workflows. And when I say workflows, that’s not just five workflows, it’s multiple workflows within each of my five offers. And I do things differently than a lot of, Colie’s past, clients do.

So. I really like to give her curve balls. And, I gave a lot of those, but I got so much done in 30 days, because if I was gonna do this, I was gonna do this. So I got through my family workflow, I got through two newborn workflows, a fresh 48 and my mini session, and they, it is insane how much harder they’re working for me that.

I saved so much time, even in just that short amount because we just finished at the end of September.

Colie: Yeah, I mean, and again guys, when I was looking at her audit, I was like, I don’t understand your choices. So we always kick systems in session off with like a one hour strategy call. And again, like Megan said, inside of systems in session, I really only. Help you attack one offer, like one customer journey.

That’s what I’m promising. And then depending on how quickly you get through it, you tend to take it on yourself to then apply what we do together for the main offer into all of your other customer journeys. So Megan did do five different customer journeys, and I just wanna put a little note in here because. One of the reasons that I was excited that you were like, oh yeah, I’ll test this out for 30 days. I have a running joke between me and my business coach about you. And I say, no, no. If I’m ever gonna test anything, I want Megan to do it because she is gonna do the absolute most. So if I ever wanna know like the maximum number of tickets that I can expect from anyone, or the maximum number of calls, oh, Megan is gonna show me the way she is gonna let me know.

What the maximum amount of support that someone is going to need so that then I can build my capacity around that. And yes, y’all, she submitted 43 support tickets in 30 days. Now, to give you a perspective, she tested a 30 day container, and I also had a brand new user, a pet photographer out of Australia that tested the 30 day container at the exact same time as Megan. One thing that I noticed between the two of them, so it’s not just Megan, it’s not just her go-getter attitude. Both of them submitted more support tickets. In a four day period when they got started than anybody else had done in three weeks. It was like,

wow.

this is a lot of support tickets. So it did help me see that if I ever open up a 30 day container, that I do have to make sure that the capacity is there to be able to have room to answer more support tickets and schedule more 20 minute SOS calls, because you guys are really like trying to get it all done in a condensed timeline, which

I mean, you know.

Megan: Well, hey, like I said, if you’re gonna do it, you’re gonna do it and you wanna get the most out of it. And so I went into it being like, I’m gonna feel great if I can get my family workflow done. And then we just kept going from there. ’cause like you said, it just all builds, but there’s just different, like there’s a little uniqueness in each thing, so we tackled those things.

I don’t know, it’s, yeah. And. You’re, you answer the questions with the, like, the loom videos with the SOS tickets and is so helpful. ’cause it’s, I don’t think I did as many calls till the end and because I, you would send me the Loom video, you’d have the aha moment. You move on, keep going. So yeah, 

Colie: Yeah, I do have people, it’s, it’s a little weird, like there have been a couple people like you that did nothing but tickets until like. I mean for a 60 day container, it’s like the last two weeks. But for you it was like the last week. ’cause I think we had three or four calls in that last week before you were officially done.

’cause you didn’t know that you were gonna continue into additional support, but. The, the tickets are like, what I love and it’s because you guys send me a question and I’m an admin on your account, so I can actually go in and look at the project or look at the template or, you know, test whatever it is that you’re asking about. And then I make you the loom video because the, the. Best thing about the Loom videos is in six months, if you can’t remember what I told you, or you have a problem that you know, you’re like, oh, this is weird. You can always go back and watch the Loom video that I gave you in order to remember what it is that we talked about, or why we made a particular choice, or how I showed you how to fix this one particular thing going forward, because that is a very big difference between what the blueprint is now. Versus systems in session is that the blueprint is kind of like a pre subscribed customer journey that I used inside of my photography business for years. And while there are a ton of videos explaining exactly how to customize it, exactly how to implement it, you don’t have me there to hold your hand. And what I have found in systems and session is that everybody that’s joined this container is further along in business. And you all have businesses where there is something unique about the way that you do things. And so that pre subscribed way that I teach in Blueprint isn’t going to get the job done for you.

I mean, could you use it? Yes. But would it get you the biggest bang for your buck? Would it get you the most time saved? No.

Megan: Well, it was nice because I knew if I hit, like if I got in a spot where I wasn’t sure, I could just fill out the ticket and then I would hear from you pretty quickly. So then I would just keep going and the, yeah. And. It’s such a range. Like I feel like too, even in the 30 days, I had things happen in Dubsado that I had never seen happen before.

So I was, well, this.

Colie: Yeah, I mean, and I do wanna say a little bit about the way that Megan does things because it is why she needed something very customized. You guys have heard me say this on the podcast before, but Dubsado is not the best platform for you to actually use the scheduler to schedule your clients when they book.

I mean, yes, there is a scheduler and yes, you can require money, but. It is not easy and it is not a straightforward path because you can’t give them a contract. If you’re using a scheduler, you can’t show them the offer first. They have to pick a day in time off the scheduler. Then they get to see the offer in a proposal or a form.

Then they pay the invoice, and then we have to set up secondary systems to send them the contract. Like it is not what we would all consider to be like the rainbow booking process, which would be, here’s my offer. Pick a day in time, sign your contract, pay me my money. Like that is the order that we all want these things to go in, and that is just not possible inside Dubsado.

So you do have to figure out a way to get the workarounds. And one of the thing that was happening for Megan is. Someone went in there and picked a day in time, and then they didn’t actually pay their invoice for 24 hours. And so I actually didn’t know that there was a limit on when Dubsado would release the appointment that they had chosen.

Turns out it’s 30 minutes, guys, in case anybody listening needs to know that. So if your person starts the process and they don’t finish picking their day and time in 30 minutes, it actually gets released. And so then you have this client who has paid you money. They told you what day they wanted, but their appointment didn’t actually get saved.

So then you’re like, okay, this is really awkward, but I gotta go back and ask the client, Hey, what day and time did you choose? Because my system didn’t save it.

Megan: I had never had that happen. I, I, like I said, we’ve, I’ve been using it since 2016. Granted, I didn’t start using the scheduler until like, I think we started working together in 2021, but still I never had that happen.

Colie: Yeah.

Megan: So I was really glad that I was in systems and sessions.

Colie: Because when she told me, I was like, um, I have no idea how this happened. I mean, I had to go back and forth with your activity logs and with Dubsado customer service to figure out why this had happened, and I’m like, okay, noted. Now I know that there’s a limit on this because I had never come up against it with any of my previous clients. Okay, Megan? You had already had a very successful business. I mean, making excellent money at photography, you have a steady stream of clients coming in. You have absolutely no difficulty booking your entire, you know, season solid, all of those things. But from the time that we started Systems in Session. We basically removed all of these approvals, all of these bottlenecks where you had to go in and add a piece of information. What is the actual number of hours that you are saving now, either per client or per week, or however it is that you wanna think about it?

Megan: So I would say. I’m saving about an hour to an hour and a half per client. So like over the span of the time that I’m working with them, it is saving me at least an hour to an hour and a half because there was lots of times that my clients weren’t signing their contract because I was having to send it to ’em, but I was sending it to ’em in an email with all this other information, and now it just right after they pay.

They, they find their appointment, make sure everything looks good, pay their session fee right after they pay it, the workflow triggers the next my contract workflow. So then they ha and it says that you are not, you know, on my calendar until you sign this contract. And then they sit. In my workflow right there with a big red stop sign.

So I know now that they have not signed their contract, but it’s nice because I don’t have to go in there and send it to them, press approve, any of that. It just automatically does it. The other thing that it’s really saves me time on is I like to hand write thank you notes to all my clients and it’s in my workflow.

And before my workflow just said a to do that, it sent me a thing that it said write Thank you notes. It did not tell me who the client was. It did not tell me anything. Just write a thank you note. And a lot of times I knew who it was, but thanks to Colie, she was like, Hey, you should like, really make sure that in case someone else down the line wants to help you or any of that kind of stuff, you need to put in all this detail.

And I’m like, okay. So now what’s nice is it says you need to send a thank you note to this client from this project, and here is their actual mailing address. ’cause I’d have to spend so much time looking through things to find it. So just small things like that. But they add up over time. I mean, yeah, even.

Extra things that she had me add into my workflow that are better serving my client and also like showcasing certain products so they have an idea of what they are and you know how to set that up and when to send it or you know, memberships with my newborn clients. Like all these things that seem like no-brainers, but I just didn’t implement or think about.

And that all was came from the 30 days and systems and sessions. So I got a lot.

Colie: Okay. I

had actually cooked. Completely forgotten about the baby plan. So guys,

we’re gonna talk about the baby plan. Now. I think everybody knows I’m a big fan of baby plans. It used to make up the majority of my income as a photographer because if you were gonna hire me to photograph your baby, I wanted to be with you for the whole year.

And then after that, those were my clients that just never went away. I mean, I was telling Megan on our coaching call earlier today about one of my clients that, I mean, he’s 11. I photographed him in the hospital. So I mean, I had really long-term clients that I was doing, from a newborn all the way until they were just annual clients, but. One of the things that I’m really pushing not only inside systems in session, but inside email, like you mean it when I’m talking about the value of your client experience is I’m now really trying to talk to the offboarding period. Like, Hey photographers, I want you to stop just sending an email that’s like, here’s your gallery, bye.

Like, what are you doing? So now we’re talking about the three Rs we’re talking about. Getting reviews, getting referrals, and getting re bookings. And one of the things that I talk to every single one of my clients about if you are a newborn photographer, is what are you doing to bring these people back in the same year?

What are you doing to make sure that newborn clients become long-term lifetime family photography clients? And I’m trying to explain to Megan, okay, you don’t have a baby plan, like we should create one. And on one of our coaching calls, she goes, oh, oh, cool. I used to have one. I said, okay. So she shows it to me guys, and I’m like, okay, so what wasn’t working?

And she’s like, no, nothing. It was working. I was like, oh, okay. So why are we not offering this anymore? She’s like, I don’t know. I just stopped. I’ve actually never been speechless on a call, but I should pull up. I was, I was just staring at her like, I don’t actually know what to sell you next, like immediately.

This needs to come back. And all of the newborns that have hired you, all the newborn clients, and like however long it’s been since you stopped offering this, like we now have to make a new workflow to where you can send it to all of them so that you can try to get them to convert. Because I was like, was it just not selling?

And she’s like, no, it was selling. And I’m just like, I, I don’t understand. Like literally like, why would you do that?

Megan: I honestly don’t know. I think I just took it off the proposal and I dunno. I dunno, but it’s.

Colie: It is back. It’s back. And so I’m excited to see how many of her newborn clients, you know, move forward with this. Because if you’re listening to this and you’re a photographer and you live somewhere warm, you don’t have the same struggles as Megan and I with. What do you do with people in January, February, March and April? When it is just snowing, snowing, snowing, and it’s cold all the time. What do you do guys? You do newborns, you do in-home

Megan: I, I do like winter sessions. I know I differ from you, Colie, but I, I do. But in Minnesota lately, uh, we have less and less snow, so I don’t really understand. But I do love winter sessions. It’s just hard to convert people to wanting to do that. when you talk about the emails though, like that was also a big game changer, was the custom GPT because that, like I had written, rewritten my emails many, many times to keep perfecting them.

And I, I think it’s like 50 some emails between the, seriously, between all of the workflows and things like. And it made it so easy because it asks you all the questions upfront, understands who I am, what my business is, how I would talk, all the things, and then boom, I just started being like, here’s what I have, make it sound better.

And it did.

Colie: It did. I mean, it’s really funny. I recently had my systems in session sales page reviewed by a copywriter, and one of the like headlines that I did for one of the many case studies on that sales page is one of my clients, Erin said, and there’s a podcast episode that she’s already done. I’ll link it in the show notes, but she was like, oh my gosh.

When I started with Colie, like in the first. Week I wrote 33 emails. I thought that was gonna take me six weeks, but I did it in an entire day. And the copywriter that reviewed it was like, oh my God, that sounds horrible. And I was thinking to myself, you are definitely not my ideal client, because my ideal client’s hearing that they redid 33 emails in a single day and it felt so much better.

And they’re so much more confident sending them, like, that’s what my clients wanna hear. So you, you don’t understand.

Megan: No, it’s great ’cause it actually does sound like me. It puts in your formula, which is great for the, for my client. It makes it, it’s short, it’s to the point, it sounds like me. It gets the point across and then we move on. And so it just made that easy to honestly, like I tell you this all the time, but like.

It’s, it’s a no brainer. It’s a no brainer to do this. Like it makes my life easier. It makes my clients experience better. I mean, why wouldn’t you do it?

Colie: Well, again, my limiting belief is that like, why would you come do this when you had the course? If you had questions, you could have gone back to the course. But again, I do. I get it now. It is that, I mean, you’re in a very different place now in 2025 than you were in 2021

when you first got the course. I mean, you did simple sales for a while and then you went back to like all inclusive and then you came back to simple sales. So I mean, you know, things have changed in your business and it’s really funny because I tell you guys, every six months you need to review your. Your processes and your workflows and your client experience, and make sure that it’s where it needs to be.

Make sure that everything is still functioning. Make sure that if you find yourself doing the same task over and over again that you’ve never done before, it might be time to update your client experience to take that task off of your plate, but. just never really thought about, yeah, you have the course and it laid everything out, but like, that might not match your business anymore.

And so it was definitely a learning moment for me. And you were the first person, but no, now I have five people. Five people that either. Well, actually you weren’t the first, Kelly was the first, which I will link her podcast episode, um, in the show notes. But you were the first person, like from Dubsado, and so that was different.

Like I was just like, HoneyBook is somewhat complicated with the automations. They’re not as straightforward. So I didn’t really have trouble understanding why someone would want me to hold their hand through that part. But with Dubsado, I’m like, no, the blueprint is like perfectly laid out, like you shouldn’t have any questions. But now I have learned. I understand that there is still value in coming back to me, even if you were a student, even if you hired me to set up your systems initially in a VIP day. Like I get it now. So thank you, Megan.

Megan: Well, it just makes it easier. I think that knowing like, I don’t know. I just figured like it was. The most direct path to getting to where I wanted to go. And so I didn’t, to be honest, I didn’t even think about going back to the blueprint because I, yeah, I really didn’t. I just was like, oh, you’re just gonna make this better for me, so why wouldn’t I do it?

Colie: But you know, the other part of it is, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast, not really in this context, but um, and I don’t know that I’ve talked about it in a while, but I feel like those of us that have had our own businesses for a while, there is definitely a point. Where you stop figuring out how can I get someone to teach me this and how can I just get somebody to do it for me?

And granted, systems in session is not done for you. I wanna make sure that I am emphasizing this. But it is done with you in that we sit down. I tell you exactly what to do, you go do it, and then you come back for more. So that is very different. And you are in a place in your business where you don’t wanna buy a course and have to watch all of the videos and have to go through everything.

Now you just, you are at a different level and you want somebody to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it, and then you go do it. And then, you know, we talk about it and then we move on to the next task.

Megan: And that’s it. ’cause it’s like I just knew I’d submit the ticket, you would address it, I’d move on, submit the ticket. I didn’t have to go back into the blueprint just ’cause I hadn’t been in there in a while to like look at things. And to be honest, I’m sure my workflow looked nothing like what it should have looked like after being done with the blueprint, because I went in there and probably messed it all.

I, I did go in there and mess it all up. And like I didn’t have things triggering, right. I had things that needed approval that we didn’t like. We just kind of talked through things a lot too. Like you would ask me like, why do you have it like this? And I’d be like, most of the time, I don’t know, I just thought it was the right thing to do.

So we just, and then we tweaked it even in that 30 days where we had my email a different way. And saw how people were reacting to it. So we switched it to another way, and then I was like, well, but I kind of just wanna send this email off, like just have it go out and then send a personal email. So we did, I mean, we had time to tweak it.

It. It’s just one of those things that you get what you put into it, right? Like the more you put into it, the more you’re gonna get out of it. And that was my mindset going into 30 days, is I know that you are a wealth of knowledge. So if I want to get the most out of this, I’m going to tap into that.

Colie: Well, and let me ask you a question because you, I mean, when you started, I’m gonna give the date, it was August 26th, so her 30 days went from August 26th to September 26th. And anyone who’s a family photographer is probably thinking, oh my God, you did this in September. And yes. I don’t even want, I, I’m not gonna tell people how many people you had on your calendar, but I can see inside your Dubsado how many appointments you had.

I mean, I don’t know how Megan found the time, but again, she found the time to go through. I mean, I was hearing from her multiple times a week. She was asking the support ticket questions. I was scheduling some of the calls with her because while she did 43 support tickets in her 30 days, I think you originally only scheduled like. Five calls and that includes your kickoff call, which is mandatory. So I mean, you really only did four calls initially and then in that last week we did a couple more. ’cause we were trying to really work out a few things that needed to be done face to face. But how did it feel to attack this in like your busiest time?

Like why didn’t you wait until Q1? Because that is something that I hear a lot. People are like, oh no, I can’t do it now. Like, I need to wait until my clients slow down. So

like, let’s wait until Q1.

Megan: no, because I knew that this was giving, this is, I’m doing this, yes. So that it is so that it’s working harder and smarter for me, but I’m doing this for my clients and this is the time that I have the most clients. So this is the time to figure this out because. If it’s a better flow for them, they’re getting the information they need, I’m able to show them products like there’s so much more that my clients are getting because I did this, like I really did this.

Yes, because it’s working for me, but really I did it for my clients and I, you’re right, I mean, I am shooting multiple sessions, sometimes multiple a day right now. I sold out of all my fall sessions in the time that we were working together, but this is, in my opinion, the time to make this as seamless as possible because it’s when I’m using it the most.

Colie: Yes. And I will say like as Megan said, she completely sold out of her entire fall season while we were working together. But the benefits of what we did were mostly, I mean, yes, we fixed your booking problems, but like that wasn’t actually what we spent the most time on because fixing your booking was actually quite simple.

After I explained to you, you are not allowed to do this again. Like, if I see you doing this again, and I was quite stern guys, but I feel like you and I spent a majority of our time really elevating your client experience for what comes after they booked. And also a big chunk of our time was what happens after you deliver the gallery.

Like when you’re waiting for that period, I feel like, and you’re gonna be able to still get a lot of bang for your buck out of that for the rest of the year, because you know, you still have at least a month, a month and a half of like solid fall sessions.

Megan: Well, and I also stopped the old workflow for a lot of my clients and started up this new workflow. So I paused where they were and then made sure they get went into my delivery workflow. So they’re all reaping the rewards of all the things that we’ve done. And yeah, I mean, it just. It was a lot of work.

I’m not gonna say that it wasn’t a lot of work, but if I’m, like I said, if I’m not, if I’m gonna do it, let’s do it and let’s do it. Right. And yeah, 

Colie: And one of the things that I’ve asked a lot of people or that people have told me in response to, but like, what did you get besides the updated systems? So you’re already a very confident business owner did, how are you feeling about your business now that you have this elevated client ex. Experie, do you feel like a more confident business owner or is there anything else that’s changed in like how you’re running your business and how you feel about running your business?

Because I feel like this year was hard for a lot of

people and so I’m wondering how doing this now. Not only impacted you for the rest of this year, but how you feel like it’s gonna impact you going into next year. Because like you said, this actually only saved you about an hour or an hour and a half per client, and that’s really low for what people report.

But you already had systems that were doing like 70% of what I would help people do. So I mean, this is just like a cherry on top, like an extra hour, hour and a half on top of all the things that you already had automated when we started.

Megan: But if you say an hour to an hour and a half, it’s not like I am. That’s in one chunk. Like think about mentally when you stop and start and like, I have to go in and I have to approve. I have to now go back and do this. I need to do this like, so. Maybe, maybe it’s an hour to total, but the brain, just the mental load of it, not having to, like, that’s also it.

I didn’t even put that into that hour and a hour and a half because it’s telling me what to do now. I don’t have to. Yeah. 

Colie: Yes. The to-do tasks are, are game changer. ’cause

a lot of people use them but they don’t use them. Right? Like again, you would get an alert that was like, send a handwritten email. Oh, a handwritten thank you note. Really

like to who? Then you have to remember. You have to go into Dubsado and you have to figure out which project it is because the email doesn’t even tell you what project like that is one of my number one complaints.

If

you don’t put the details in there, when you get the email, there are no details. You actually have to go into Dubsado, find it in your actions, click it, and then it will show you which project it is. And again, if you are not labeling your projects correctly, it’s just gonna say like, contact 20, 25, like 50 times.

Which, oh my gosh, I’m gonna stop right now. I need everybody to be renaming their projects with their client name included. Otherwise, you get on your calendar and all you see are 50 projects that all have the same name. Please rename your your projects. Please include your client’s name and specifically whatever it is that they end up booking.

That is like my plea to everybody. Listen.

Megan: Well. It seems, it seems silly now that I know I can do this. Why I didn’t do it, because there’s smart fields in there. It’s very easy to just put, it, just didn’t do it. So there’s just, yeah.

Colie: When it’s funny, I think now that I’m kind of talking to a different person than I was with the blueprint originally. Now, I tell all of you guys in systems in session, I need you to have this level of detail because eventually you might wanna hire somebody, you might want a virtual assistant or someone else to come into your business to help you with the managing of your clients inside of Dubsado.

Or your CRM, like, it’s not really an if. For most people, it’s a when and if you don’t put the level of detail in there that’s needed. Now you are gonna waste a lot of time in the future trying to train your virtual assistant to know what things should happen versus if it’s already in the workflows.

Literally they can just open the workflow and look at every single step, and it will have all of the information that they need inside of those to-do tasks. If we have included them in your workflows going forward, which I like to insist that everybody have that going forward. I mean, Dubsado is not the best for project management.

It’s not the best for task management, but you can use what’s included definitely to make your life easier and to potentially hand it off to someone else in the future.

Megan: And I think that’s probably the best, like, saving time, but also feeling confident about my workflows. So that’s not anything I need to worry about. So going into Q1, I can worry about other things and know that my workflows are continuing to do the heavy lifting for me and getting the information I need to.

And it’s just nice to have someone else like. Looking at what my emails say, giving me feedback on them. You know, did, did you think about saying it this way? How about we send it at, you know, three days instead of the, you know, five days? You know, adding in those extra touch points at the end. I mean, it’s all seems like a no brainer when you do them, but they’re, even though I’ve been in business for, I don’t know, almost 16 years, like they’re just things that, it’s so nice.

Duh. Why didn’t I have that? Like so it a lot out it Hence I continuing.

Colie: I am the gift that keeps on giving. So I interviewed Sabrina recently and she’s like, Colie, we’ve been talking about this for years, but when am I gonna get my merch? When are you finally gonna make t-shirts that say, do what Colie says? And I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna ask Rachel to design something.

So I’m gonna send all you guys stickers. Or mugs or something that say, just do what Colie says, ’cause it is the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you, Megan.

Megan: It is true though, like to know that you have someone who can just answer the question for you. Like, I think at first I remember being like, should I be sending this money as to what? Like, should I be sending this ticket? Should I, but like you make it so easy. Like I don’t, after I got into the flow, it was like, of course I’m gonna send this and she’s gonna send back, you know, anywhere from, I think there was, when we did that workflow audits, I think I got one that was 34 minutes long and that’s because I’m messed up.

yeah. But like, you get like really short actionable ones and then once we get into the automations, then, you know, they’re longer, especially if you mess up. But, I don’t know. I just, there’s so much besides just, yeah, there’s, you just, you know, you learn a lot and you get a lot out of it, so just do it already.

Colie: Well, thank you Megan. It, it is funny, the last six people to join for 20, 25, 4 of them were not photographers, so it is interesting. I am learning about their business. I have a personal stylist, a home organizer. A health coach and a physician’s advocate wellness person. So, I mean, for non photographers. But it is funny because I’ve only been talking to photographers for the majority of this year. You know, I originally was like the course was only for photographers and then I expanded it to all creatives and now I’m going back into photographers. ’cause it just makes it easier for me to talk about my expertise.

And so I do think that when it comes to like people who are photographers that come into systems and session, yes. I am able to use like my big strategy brain to help you figure things out. But I’m also like, no, I have been a photographer. Like I don’t know why you want to do this. Can you just trust me in

the long term? This is not a good idea and if You really wanna do it, I will. I will help you. I will show you. But then also I will be the first person to tell you, I told you so when you come back in two months and you’re like, you know what, Colie, that really wasn’t a good idea. And I’ll be like, I know, but also this is how you fix it.

Megan: Well, and you just had the right question to ask, like, don’t you wanna put this in your questionnaire? I’m not sure why you have this in your questionnaire. Don’t you need this in your proposal? Like you just, again, you just knew what to to say and I don’t know it. Yes. I, yeah, I don’t know it. 30 days flew by, but I got a lot out of it.

And I feel like it’s because you put just as much back in as what, so whatever I’m putting in, you were matching so that we just kept the ball rolling.

Colie: Well, let me ask you a different question. If I had actually given you the choice, and I mean of course you had the choice, you could have paid for 60 days, but I was like, no, don’t you wanna test 30 for me. If the 30 day had already been established and it was just an option, like, do you want 60 days?

Do you want 30 days? Which one do you think you would have chosen and

why? 30 Okay. 

Megan: because I just wanna do it. It just ripped the bandaid. Let’s go. Like the only reason that I didn’t start until August 26th is ’cause then my kids were back in school and we weren’t in summer anymore. And so I was like, when I signed up I was like, oh, I can’t do this. You are gonna be gone and all this.

And 

Colie: Birthday sabbatical. Mm-hmm. 

Megan: So I was like, we’re, let’s do this. But I was chomping at the bit. I was super excited because I knew that this would just elevate everything for my clients and it would just work better for me.

Colie: Okay. Megan, is there anything that you think that someone should know about systems in session that I haven’t asked? You or anything about just feeling confident in getting systems for your business? ’cause again, you’re, you’re a very long-term business owner. You are not new, but like, I feel like a lot of long-term business owners are like, oh no, my systems like they’re working fine the way that they are.

Like why mess with them? It’s good enough. What would you say to someone who said, no, my current systems are just good enough.

Megan: Uh, you haven’t worked with Colie yet, and uh, that’s really like, I think. You, you do not realize how much better it can be unless you have someone else who is very well versed in it can tell you how much better it can be. And so it’s like, you don’t need this approval and you can put these smart fields in here and you can do this and have you thought about that?

And even all the other little things like, uh, this is where this video should go and this you should, you know, like. You don’t realize it until someone else is really in there looking at it, how much better it can be, 

Colie: Well, and the funny thing is I try to sell the audits, right? Which you got an audit and

then you didn’t even look at the results before you joined systems in session. But like that is what I like to tell people. I’m like, Hey, if you are unsure about how much you know, you’ll get out of it. Yes, you can schedule a sales call.

Yes, you can talk to me about it in a video ask, but also you can pay me to do an audit and I will go through the entire thing and actually give you an action list. And hey, if I give you the action list of what would make your client experience better and you can go in and tackle it on your own, good job, you would’ve just spent a couple hundred dollars to get the answers that you need. But if, if you do the audit and you look at the checklist and you’re like, oh, wow, like I thought they were good, but they can be so much better, and you want me to hold your hand and give you guidance and feedback as you do it, that is what systems in session is for. But like. The audit is there guys. If you are an established business owner and you’re just like, yeah, that sounds great, but like, I don’t think I’d get that much out of it.

I mean, get an

audit. 

Megan: the audit was, and it’s not small. Like honestly, the audit was very informational. It was, you went through it and then you gave me feedback as you went through. Why are you doing this? I’m not sure why this is here. Uh huh. Like why, why, why? There was a lot of why’s. That’s why I did ask you. I was like, did you want me to respond?

And you’re like, no, we just gonna do this in systems in session. But, just having another person like that is one thing that I don’t. I didn’t really tap into until like, I think probably the blueprint where really getting someone else to look at that, look at everything that you’re doing and just give you a fresh perspective or, you know, and that makes a big difference.

’cause when you have been doing it for so long and you’ve been doing it the same way, you, you just get stuck in your ways. But hearing someone else come in and be like, well, have you thought about this? Or this would make it easier, and you’re like, oh yeah, you’re right. But again, e knows everything when it comes to this, so just do it.

Colie: I don’t know everything, but it. is definitely my personality that if I don’t know it, I figure it out.

Megan: but you knew everything except for that one thing, and that was a total anomaly because Yeah, 

Colie: Just 

Megan: it was,

Colie: Yeah.

Megan: but no, it, it was, it really was the best money I’ve spent this year. For my business because it not only benefits me, but it also benefits my clients, and that’s a win-win.

Colie: Ugh. Okay, everyone. I hope that listening to Megan, someone who has worked with me before in a different capacity and still thought that systems in session would give her value, elevate her client experience, not only for herself or her clients, has given you something to think about and again. If you are unsure about your current systems or you have questions, please feel free to hop in my dms. Please feel free to visit the show notes and book yourself an audit or if you’re ready to tackle everything in a 60 day container. Because I’m not quite sure I’m ready to have any other 30 day people quite yet. But if you would like more information about systems in session, go to Colie james.com/sis. And there’s like, you know, all of the things, it’ll help you decide. And if not, there’s a video ask. You can book a call or you can book an audit. Megan, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the podcast. It was great to have you on.

Megan: Thanks for having me. This was fun and I really genuinely appreciate all of your help because you’ve, it’s, it’s a game changer.

Colie: All right everybody. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.