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Introducing

Samara Bortz Creative

Client Stories

Using Dubsado to manage a booked-out web designer’s client projects

Industry:

Brand & Website Design

Project:

Dubsado VIP Week

Taking this website designer’s project management from ‘hot mess’ to complete ease using Dubsado

Picture this: you established your creative business a few years ago, but now you’re ready for a website that matches your level of work. 

Except you wonder if your brand connects with your dream clients, if your brand voice reflects your values, or if your color palette works for you. 

What you’d love is a brand strategist and web designer who takes the time to truly understand you, your brand, and your purpose. Even better, you’d love a designer who offers intuitive (and impactful) advice as your business grows!

Enter: Samara Bortz. 

An in-depth, personalized, heart-led process is central to Samara’s brand and web design services and fits perfectly with the creative entrepreneurs she supports.

What didn’t fit so well?

Samara’s Dubsado set-up and project management process. 

Trying every project management tool in the toolbox

Before Samara set up her Dubsado, she used Honeybook as her main client management software. But it wasn’t her only project management tool.  Her toolkit included:
  • Honeybook for invoices and contracts.
  • Calendly for scheduling appointments.
  • Asana for streamlining her projects.
  • Google Drive for delivering project assets.
Yet, both Samara and her clients felt overwhelmed navigating all these different platforms. She knew her clients needed a streamlined system with all communications and deliverables centered in one, easy-to-access spot.  When Samara switched to Dubsado, she copied and pasted everything she used in Honeybook over to the new platform.  To her, Dubsado was just something she needed for payments and contracts.

"I didn’t have the time, desire, or patience to figure out the Dubsado automations. While I had watched a few tutorials on setting up workflows, I found it overwhelming and time-consuming so I never set them up. I was doing everything manually in Honeybook anyways, so I could do the same here."

Over time though, Samara realized that less ‘fun’ tasks like systems made a real difference in growing her business.

When those systems are set up and automated, they create a high-quality client experience and add more time back into her week. Time she could spend on marketing and client work, rather than retyping the same emails over and over. 

Hesitations about automation

Samara knew a comprehensive Dubsado setup with canned emails, proposals, and workflows would give her that structure she craved. But she still had a few concerns holding her back. 
  1. Having an intentional, supportive, and heart-connected relationship with her clients was important to Samara and her brand. She feared that automations would take the personal side out of her client experience. 
  1. Samara already knew how overwhelming Dubsado could be. She worried she wouldn’t understand what was going on inside her systems and wouldn’t be able to make any necessary changes in the future. 
Those concerns are completely understandable! And it’s exactly why a foundational part of my Dubsado setup process is getting to know your concerns and creating a system that works for you.

Personalizing and streamlining her web design project management

Once she decided her Dubsado system needed more than a little TLC, Samara signed up for a Dubsado VIP Week to get a complete overhaul of her systems. 

After setting aside time to go through the prep work, Samara and I had our Process Mapping Call. During this call,  we reviewed her entire business structure, identified areas for automation, and created a roadmap for every single one of her services and processes. 

It might sound overwhelming, but this is how Samara described working together:

 "It was like working with an incredibly organized friend (perfect for not-so-type-A creatives like myself), who was able to pinpoint ways to increase my efficiency in ways I had never considered before!"

As I got to work on creating her forms, customizing her schedulers, drafting her emails, and building her workflows, Samara and I stayed in communication so every tweak aligned with her processes. 

The step-by-step breakdown

Take a look at everything we did when setting up and automating Samara’s Dubsado during her Dubsado VIP Week:

  • Set up Dubsado for 3 signature services and 2 stand-alone offerings
  • Mapped out 207 steps (forms, emails, calendars, requests) across her services
  • Made 180 of those 207 (87%) completely automatic
  • Built out her client portal – a one-stop-shop for her all her client work
  • Created 73 canned emails, 27 form templates, 18 workflows, and 17 schedulers

What does all this mean for Samara’s project management and client experience?

  1. Samara’s onboarding and offboarding processes are significantly faster than before, giving her more time in her day to design and coach.
  1. Samara is still able to add the personal touches she values to her emails without having to rewrite them every single time she sends a new one. 
  1. Samara no longer uses Calendly or Asana for her client projects. From scheduling appointments to requesting feedback, everything is now handled through her client portal.

More web design time and financial freedom with Dubsado

The instant changes Samara experienced with her complete Dubsado setup included streamlining her project management process and offering a high-quality client experience. 

But Samara also saved…

  • 5+ hours per week on email writing
  • 3+ hours per week on form customization
  • 2+ hours per week on administrative tasks

Resulting in a savings of 350+ hours and $8,800 per year on tasks a virtual assistant would handle!

Plus, Samara now has more hours in her week to spend on client work, launch new services, or relax at home with her husband and puppy.  

If you’re ready for this type of transformation, or desperately need more time in your week to get everything checked off your to-do list, then a Dubsado VIP Experience is for you. 

All you have to do is book your free Discovery Call to get started!

the portfolio

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Client Portal

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Questionnaires

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Proposals

Let’s Work Together

Ready for your transformation?