Why I Chose to Pay for Dubsado

Before I chose to pay for Dubsado, I was guilty of weaving an intricate web of free tools. Can you relate to running your business this way?

What tools do you use to run your business?

When I first started out back in the summer of 2017, I had only a vague idea about what all needed to happen in the sales and onboarding process. I knew I needed to use something to show potential clients what I was about and the services I had to offer. I obviously needed some sort of contract that could be signed digitally since my goal was to work from home. And of course, I needed a way to invoice clients and collect payment.

Back then I was offering bookkeeping services, so invoicing through QuickBooks was a no-brainer. But the other pieces? I had a whole slew of free tools I was using since I couldn’t afford to invest in anything yet. I used:

• YouCanBook.me and Calendly for scheduling appointments
• PowerPoint and Beautiful.ai for proposals
• Word docs uploaded to HelloSign for contracts
• Wufoo and JotForm for questionnaires and collecting client info
• Outlook for manually keeping track of clients and communicating with them

I had quite the free tech stack!

At the time, I was still working my corporate job and didn’t have time to take on many clients anyway. But the ones I did talk to took FOR-EV-ER to get their paperwork in order because I was using so many different tools. It was REALLY hard to keep track of things that were happening in my business. I was constantly going back and forth between tools and creating new items from scratch every time.

First I had to write the proposal. I had picked a nicely themed template in PowerPoint, but I was still customizing every page for each client. Then I had to do the contract, which again, was custom per client. After sending the proposal (as a PDF) and then the contract (via HelloSign), I would manually create a new invoice in QuickBooks to send once the contract was e-signed. So much work!! At one point I switched over to Beautiful.ai for my proposals, which made them prettier, but still manual. Ugh!

Then I found Dubsado…

It wasn’t until a year later (when my business started picking up) that I really got serious about onboarding more clients and finding a great solution for managing them. That’s when I came across Dubsado. Someone had suggested it as a CRM option in a Facebook group I was part of so I started looking into it. I signed up for the free trial and was TOTALLY blown away by all the features it offers! Proposals, contracts, invoicing, questionnaires, automation—it had it all! I set up my own account and then snagged a couple of clients who needed help with theirs. It wasn’t long before I was in love. I even pivoted my VA business and niched down to focus solely on helping other business owners get the most out of their accounts!

No more PowerPoint, no more HelloSign, no more having to do ten million manual steps to sell and onboard new clients. I’m still constantly tweaking my own account, but I take full advantage of all of Dubsado’s amazing features! New clients receive their proposal, contract, and invoice all together in a single document. Once they’ve signed up, they automatically receive a Next Steps email with onboarding instructions. Not to mention they’re able to schedule their strategy sessions through Dubsado as well. I now have the capability of housing all of my client data together AND streamline my sales and onboarding process with automated workflows!

Looking Back…

It made sense for me as a beginner with few clients to try to piece-meal my workflows together. However, now that I’m working with several clients at a time simultaneously, it would be a complete nightmare to still be running on all those free tools! Plus, I can’t even imagine how much time I would be wasting trying to manage everything by hand!

When time = money, free doesn’t always add up. More time spent bouncing between free tools meant less time working with my clients and less money that could be made. When I chose to pay for Dubsado, I was able to replace every single one of the tools I was previously using to run my business (and then some!). As a result, I have a fully automated process that requires very little effort from me to run it. This means I have more time and brain space to dedicate to my clients, which in turn gives them a better experience and makes them even more likely to refer more business my way! It’s a total win-win!

I seriously can’t even imagine how I’d run my business without using Dubsado. It has made SUCH a difference in my life and made running my solo business SO much more manageable!

What about you? Are you still running your entire business on free tools? Don’t your clients deserve more of your undivided attention? If you’re sick and tired of trying to keep track of your proposals, contracts, payments, clients, etc. you NEED to give Dubsado a try! They have an AMAZING free trial that gives you full access to all of the tool’s features. You will only be prompted to upgrade in order to add more than 3 clients to your account.

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Not even sure what Dubsado is? Sign up for an amazing free trial to get your feet wet. And bonus, once you decide you’re ready to upgrade to a paid account, you can use my affiliate link and referral code (sarahleighday) to get 30% off your first month or year! Not bad, huh?