Dubsado CRM—the right choice for my creative small business—maybe yours too!
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Dubsado CRM—the right choice for my creative small business—maybe yours too!
As a new business owner one important facet to consider is how you are going to invoice your clients and accept payments. If you are a service provider another important thing to have in place is a contract and a way to collect signatures.
I believe that the majority of my business will be conducted online versus face-to-face so I went in search of an application that would generate invoices, contracts, collect electronic signatures, and accept online payments. These were my primary needs and where my search started.
I’ve found there are several options to consider. Many payment processors and accounting programs will allow you to generate invoices but lack the function to generate contracts and collect online signatures. This feature can be found in Customer Relationship Management Software. So when narrowing the focus for small businesses, four options stood out: 17 Hats, Hello Bonsai, Honeybook, and Dubsado.
Choosing a CRM
Each of these programs would work for my scenario, so I had to dig in a bit to figure out which to try. In looking at the websites for each platform, I quickly discerned that 17 Hats was not for me, although it was one of my mentor’s favorites. At the time, I didn’t care for the interface nor the color scheme and it was also the most expensive option at $45/mo. I’m going to look at the following 7 factors to assist in making the choice.
1 | FREE TRIALS
Next, I opted for free trials of Honeybook, Hello Bonsai, and Dubsado. The free trials of each differ significantly. Hello Bonsai gives you 14 days, Honeybook 7 days, and Dubsado gives you unlimited time for up to 3 clients. For as complicated and feature rich as these applications are I don’t believe 7 days is nearly enough time to really understand what is available especially for a CRM newbie.
2 | CONTRACT TEMPLATES
The first feature I reviewed was the contract templates. I felt all three programs offered decent contracts and other templates as well. I preferred Honeybook and Dubsado’s contracts and templates so I moved forward with both of these to explore the platform in more detail.
3 | COST
I found Honeybook very intuitive and easy to navigate. It seemed like the set up would be fairly quick and easy. A few things I did not like: that they only offer their own payment processing with higher processing fees, the trial was too short to really get a grasp on the system, and the monthly fee is also higher than Dubsado, $39/mo vs $35/mo. This week Dubsado is on sale for its 5 year anniversary for $30/mo! If you’d like to get an additional 20% off your first month or year use my code: thorpeco20
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4 | LEARNING CURVE
With Dubsado, there is a much steeper learning curve, but they have a decent amount of training videos and now a free Dubsado 101 course dedicated to assisting in really understanding the system. I also am looking forward to the additional training content coming soon to become a certified Dubsado Pro.
5 | CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS
Another perhaps “priceless” benefit of Dubsado is the highly customizable system they have build. You are able to start with a wealth of templated forms and emails, customize them all, create you own from scratch, and finally make your own custom templates. Additionally, a bit of CSS knowledge will make all of these forms and emails next level amazing!!
6 | PAYMENT PROCESSING
What can I say, I like having options. Dubsado gives you just that! They offer multiple pay processing options: Stripe or Square and PayPal. They also don’t tack on any additional processing fees. “Cha-Ching!” I’m all about keeping more of your own hard earned moola in your own pocket!
7 | MULTIPLE BUSINESSES
One of the biggest wins for me is they only charge an additional $10/mo for additional brands. To my knowledge all of the other providers would charge you for a full second account. As my husband has his own consulting and private chef businesses, this is something I plan on taking advantage of in the future.
So is it decision making time for you or just the tip of your research “iceberg”?
Here’s a concise recap of what we covered today…
You will love Hello Bonsai if:
You need a basic CRM system
You are most concerned with keeping costs low
Give Hello Bonsai a go!
You will love Honeybook if:
You want an intuitive interface
You want an easy to learn CRM
Your ok with higher processing fees
Take Honeybook for a spin!
You will love Dubsado if:
You want to highly customize your forms and workflows
You want to use Stripe, Square and or Paypal for payment processing
You have more than one business
Your ok with a steeper learning curve
Try my personal fav: Dubsado! (affiliate link)
In retrospect, this could have been an easier decision making process. After writing this all out, it seems to have been a quick and painless process. In reality, it’s taken me months of research, investigation, and trial and error. Is it an important decision? YES! But also one you can easily change your mind about, thus lessening the risk factor quite a bit.
My biggest piece of advice, pick one CRM, dig into it a bit and then honestly evaluate how you like it, how your clients like it, and is it meeting all your needs. It’s so hard to make a truly educated guess when you don’t know, what you don’t know. So just get started already! Take the plunge and start taking some massive imperfect action!
Next time, I will walk you through my initial setup of Dubsado!
Are you just starting to look into CRM’s or are you a seasoned Pro? What are the most important factors for you in your CRM search? Do you have any tips you’d give someone just starting out?
Dubsado Series Posts:
Dubsado CRM—the right choice for my creative small business—maybe yours too!
Getting Started with Dubsado CRM | Part 1 ~ Essential Brand Settings
Getting Started with Dubsado CRM | Part 2 ~ How to Embed Your Lead Capture Forms in Squarespace 7.1
The Dubsado 6 year anniversary sale is on now! Save big $$ through the end of the week Get an additional 30% off your first month or year on top of a 30% discount by using my code: sisusiteshop
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Hej! Thanks for stopping in! Sisu Site Shop is an online business strategy + custom brand and web design studio. We sell Squarespace 7.1 templates, offer VIP Days for brand + web design + Dubsado setups for small businesses including Artists, Educators, and Hospitality Professionals. We serve clients worldwide from our current home base in Montana. We help you start, organize, and modernize your business, brand, and website so that you can sell, serve, and stand out online. If you have a project in mind we’d love to learn more about it!
When you’re ready here are three ways we can help you:
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