Dubsado is a powerful tool that helped me elevate my client experience while getting my life back! It’s the #1 thing that I recommend to every new small business owner. Almost every step of my business is supported by the platform and when I tell you it has given me hours of my life back, I mean houuuurs. There is a small catch though – learning the in’s and out’s can be a bit of a learning curve. Fear not! This blog is all about Dubsado for wedding planners, and how I’ve used it to change my business!

Step 1: admit you cannot do it all.

For me, this moment came in the midst of a busy June wedding season when I realized (the horror) that I had forgotten to send someone an invoice. At this point, I was creating a PDF for each invoice, adding the info into a spreadsheet, and then finally emailing it off to the client who would send me an eTransfer. Groan! This was not an efficient use of my time OR a seamless experience for my valued clients. Quite literally, a lose-lose situation.

It was time to make a change!

Where to start with Dubsado?

Getting started with Dubsado is easy when you know what your biggest pain point is. So that’s where we’re going to start!

From the following list, choose your top priority:

• sending invoices, invoice reminders and payment notifications
• sending and signing contracts
• offering a consistent service for all clients
• booking meetings with couples without going back and forth 849 times

Once you know which problem you want to solve first, you’re ready to jump in.

I also recommend getting your contact form created and added to your site so that right away your inquiries will be collected within Dubsado, but as always, you do you!

Sending Invoices and Payment Reminders

If this is your biggest pain point, you’re going to want to start by inputting your packages and payment schedules. From there you’ll want to input all of your clients, their packages and any payment information. Once you’ve done that you can apply their payment schedule and rest assured that they will receive their payment reminders!

I would also suggest setting up Square or Stripe so that clients can pay via credit card. Yes, this does come with a 3% service charge, however, it makes the payment process incredibly easy and streamlined! Take this as a sign to raise your prices by 5% 😉

Sending and Signing Contracts

Sending and signing contracts is SO easy in Dubsado. If this is your top priority, you can simply convert your current service agreement, add the signature fields and start sending. You can get this function up and running in less than an hour. I believe in you!

Offering Consistent Service for all Clients

One of my favourite things about Dubsado is that it’s helped me streamline my process and offer consistent service to everyone! I no longer have to worry about remembering to send an email at their “90-day pre-wedding” date, the software will do this for me. Since I am not longer sending every single email manually, I have a lot more room to add in emails and worksheets to serve my clients!

To get to this point, you will want to set up workflows. This is the last step of set up, so before you get too eager be sure you have created your packages, payment schedules, proposals, service agreements, questionnaires, schedulers and canned emails!

Schedule Meetings

This is one of my favourite features of Dubsado! You can create “schedulers” within the platform, share a link with your clients and they can book based on your availability! You can also send them reminder emails and “reschedule/cancel” links. This feature alone has probably saved me from having to write more than 100 emails.

Once you’ve started checking off some of the above tasks, you might suddenly find that you are ready to dive into creating your workflows! This is where the REAL magic happens (hellooooo automation). Want to see the exact workflow that I use for new inquiries? Click here!

Now that you’ve learned some of my Dubsado for wedding planners tricks and tricks, come check out this blog about automating emails!