Dubsado Tutorial | A Quick & Simple Dubsado Walkthrough

Dubsado* is the hottest business tool in the freelance world right now. I get a LOT of questions about it. So in this video, I'm sharing what Dubsado is and how to use it.

If you're scratching your head, wondering what the heck Dubsado is then here's the lowdown:

Dubsado is an all-in-one business management tool that allows you to send contracts and invoices, handle project management, create questionnaires and other forms, manage bookkeeping, track your time, send and receive emails and SO much more... all from ONE app.

And guess what? It's only $35 a month. That's a suuuper sweet price for a tool that does SO much and saves you so much time.

(If you can’t afford Dubsado right now, I recommend sticking to free tools. My course, Organize & Automate, helps you streamline your business using free tools only.)

Watch the video below to see a quick and simple Dubsado* walkthrough! In the video, you'll see exactly what Dubsado looks like, how it works, and the features it includes.

If you're not a video lover then don't worry, I've got you covered. Read on to learn of the main Dubsado features...

Dashboard

This includes...

• A financial overview - This shows how much money you've made so far and how much your clients still owe.

• Recents - This section shows recent activity.

• Monthly calendar - This shows all the tasks you've scheduled for the week. You can sync Dubsado* with your Apple or Google calendar so it automatically imports your tasks!

• To-do list.

• Unread alerts - When a client pays an invoice or signs a contract, you'll receive alerts.

Projects

This section displays all your potential, current and past clients.

This includes...

• A list of all leads + the date they inquired, the amount their project is worth, whether a contract has been signed and more.

• A list of all jobs with the same features I mentioned above.

• The invoices, contracts and forms you've sent to your clients.

• Appointments you've scheduled with your clients.

• Tasks.

• Notes.

• More!

Accounting

Dubsado's bookkeeping is quite basic so if you need to do in-depth bookkeeping then I recommend using Quickbooks. Dubsado* syncs with Quickbooks and they will also be syncing with Wave Apps and Xero soon. 

This includes...

• Invoices

• Proposals

• Profit & Loss statement

• Chart of accounts

Calendar

This includes...

• A monthly, weekly or daily view.

• Ability to import tasks from external calendars like Apple or Google Cal.

• Ability to export tasks from Dubsado* to your Apple or Google Cal.

Tasks

This includes...

• The ability to create tasks and assign them to yourself or other team members.

• Tasks in a list format.

• Tasks in a board format.

Utilities: Forms

This includes...

• A list of all forms you've ever sent your clients.

Utilities: Address Book

This includes...

• All essential information about your clients

• This information is imported into the address book when your client fills out the contact form on your website.

Utilities: Time Tracker

This includes...

• A time tracker you can use to time your projects.

• The ability to add the time tracked directly to invoices.

Templates

This includes...

• A scheduler you can use to schedule appointments

• Form templates: questionnaires, contracts, sub-contracts, proposals and contact page forms.

• Canned emails: email scripts you can send to clients so you're not typing out the same things all the time.

• Packages: create templates for each of your services/packages. You can then add your services to invoices and proposals with just one click!

• Workflows: Automations you can add clients to.

• Payment schedules

Bonus features!

• With Dubsado, you can send your contracts for electronic signature. That means your client can sign your contract quickly and easily, right from their inbox!

• You can brand everything with your own logo and colours.

• You can create client portals from inside Dubsado so your client has a page they can log in to and view all the files, emails and forms you've sent each other.

In my opinion...

Dubsado* is the bee's knee's. I've listed all of it's core features in this blog post but there are lots more that haven't been listed! If you can invest in any automation tool in your service-based business, let it be this one.

Get 20% off your first month on Dubsado

Click here to use my affiliate link*. When you sign up for a paid account via that link or use the code ‘nesha’, you get 20% off your first month- yay!

Organize Your Entire Online Service-Based Business In 2 Weeks

Want to set up and start using Dubsado quickly and easily? When you join my course, Organize & Automate, you get my secret bonus course, Dubsado In A Day, thrown in for free!

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Here's what my students have said about this course...

"I had been using Dubsado for months but had no idea how much it could do! Through this course, I learned a lot about workflows and it has changed everything for me. This course made Dubsado SO much easier to understand and set up.”

- Andrea Balogun, studioworkshopgroup.com

"Working through this course has been a gamechanger. I knew Dubsado was an amazing tool but after completing the Dubsado In A Day bonus, I now understand the full potential of this resource! Enroll in this course. The investment it TOTALLY worth it!”

- Madison Whiteneck, keepingthecreativity.com

“I never thought I would switch to Dubsado but after going through some of the lessons in this course, I am blown away by how much Dubsado can save me time and energy in my client process. It also makes my business look so much more organized and professional!”

- Paigon Davis, natashalanedesignco.com

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All links marked with a * are affiliate links. I get a little commission when you sign up for Dubsado using my affiliate link, but don't worry! I only recommend them because I seriously love them. 

The ONLY 5 Free Tools You Need To Organize Your Business

In today's video, you're going to learn the only five free tools you need to organize your business.

There are a LOT of tools out there that you can choose from, and it can be a real time suck trying each of them to see what's a good fit for your business.

Instead, you can use this video to discover the best ones in just five minutes!

Watch the video below or continue reading to learn more. (The video below was originally recorded for freelance designers but it will benefit you no matter what industry you’re from - as long as it is a service-based online industry.)

And if you like this video, don’t forget to subscribe to my Youtube channel for more!

01. Wave Apps

The first business tool that I want to talk to you about is Wave Apps. Wave is a free bookkeeping and invoicing tool.

It's free and it's super easy to use, you can add your accountant, you can use it to document your personal bills and expenses as well as business expenses, you can download the Wave Receipts App to photograph and upload receipts on the go, and it can generate much-needed reports like your Profit & Loss report!

If you are a sole trader and you’re in your first few years of business, this is the perfect bookkeeping tool for you!

I used Wave for the first few years of my business (until I changed my business legal entity from “sole trader” to “limited company”, and switched to a premium accounting tool my bookkeeper recommended because it could manage payroll etc.)

I suggest you use Wave Apps and create a monthly bookkeeping day. So on the same day every month (i.e. your bookkeeping day), you will dedicate one or two hours to bookkeeping.

Simply open up Wave on that day, input all of your receipts for the month, and categorize all of your transactions for the month. Then you are done! This will help you avoid the crazy chaos that so many freelancers go through at tax season when they suddenly need to organize a year’s worth of receipts.

02. Calendly

Have you ever sent dozens of back and forth emails to a client, trying to agree on a date for a consultation? It takes so much time and energy just to find a day that works for you both.

The solution is to use an online scheduler like Calendly.

Here's how it works: you send your client a link to your Calendly calendar, and then the client just clicks the link. It shows them the dates and the times that you're available. They choose one, fill in their details, and then Calendly automatically imports that information to both of your calendars. It takes all of the hard work out of it for you completely!

The pros of Calendly? It is super simple for you and your clients to use, it integrates with your Google, Apple, Office 365 or Outlook calendar, it’s time intelligent (meaning it seamlessly detects the timezone of your invitee and converts your available meeting times to their timezone), and there's a free plan you can use if you only have one event type.

The con? If you need more than one event type, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan. (An event type is a category for your meeting. For example, I have an event type called 'Coaching Call' and one called 'Coffee Chat'.)

The other con is that you can't customize the email notifications your clients receive if you're on the free plan. It's not a big deal though because Calendly's readymade email notifications are just fine.

03. Hellosign

Stop sending clients contracts to print, sign, scan, and send back to you because that makes your clients jump through hoops to get booked in your schedule.

Hellosign let's you send contracts electronically. So, when a potential client wants to book a spot in your schedule, what you'll do is send them the contract from Hellosign. It will allow them to sign the contract right from their inbox so they don't have to print it! They can just click a couple of buttons and sign the contract electronically, then Hellosign sends you both the finalized copy.

The con of the free plan on Hellosign is that you can only send three documents per month. But for most of you reading this, that is enough.

(Tired of piecing together parts of free online contracts or creating your own, hoping it’ll protect you if and when the time comes? Invest in a real contract - a contract you can trust will protect you. I recommend The Contract Shop!*)

04. Asana

You guys know I talk about this tool all the time because I love it that much. Asana is a free project management tool that you can use with unlimited clients and up to 15 team members before you need to upgrade to a paid plan.

(I teach you the ins and outs of Asana inside my course, Organize & Automate.)

Now, in case any of you don't know, a project management tool is a secure space online where you can handle your entire project with the client. So you can communicate with the client, send feedback and files, assign tasks to yourself or the client, assign due dates, create calendars, and more!

The beauty of Asana is the task reminders. If you want to make sure your client remembers something (like their payment, for example), simply create a task in Asana, assign it to the client and give it a due date. When that date approaches, Asana will send an email reminder to your client!

Another pro? You can create recurring tasks that pop up on your calendar or your client’s calendar on a regular basis.

Honestly, I could go on about it for a long time because I like it that much. The cons are pretty much none that I can think of. That's why it is my favorite free project management tool.

If you want to learn the BEST way to convince your clients to use Asana with you instead of managing the project through back and forth email, sign up for my free masterclass below! I’ll teach you about Asana and more!

05. Gmail

Instead of using Apple Mail, Outlook or Yahoo for your business, I recommend Gmail. The reason I think that Gmail is better is because of the simple fact that it is easier to give team members access to Gmail than it is to Apple Mail. You may not have a team now, but if your business keeps growing, you will eventually have one, and you don't want to get to that point where you're suddenly hiring team members and you've got to also start using a different inbox tool because these team members can't work with the one that you're currently using.

Outlook, Yahoo and Apple Mail aren’t the most popular inboxes to use - so there’s a high chance your future virtual assistant won’t be able to use them with you.

But almost all VA’s can use Gmail.

Plus, there is the added benefit of joining Gsuite when you’re ready (it starts at £3.30 per month) so you can create a professional email address right from within Gmail. For example, instead of yourname@gmail.com, your email address can be hi@yourwebsite.com.

There are lots of great features to Gsuite. There's also Google Drive, which you can use to send files to your clients, and Google Calendar, which you can use to stay organized.

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* All links with an * next to them are affiliate links. Don’t worry though, I’d never recommend something I don’t use and love!

How To Master Client Consultations As An Introvert

When I first started freelancing, I totally loathed client consultations. I didn't even offer them unless a client requested one - and even then, the urge to say no was VERY strong.

Why'd I hate them so much? Put simply, it was because I'm an introvert, and the prospect of having to sit and awkwardly talk to someone who was thinking of giving me their hard-earned money was daunting, to say the least.

I was always scared that they'd ask something that would catch me off guard, or scared that I'd get nervous and talk too much.

I even wondered if free consultations would give too much value away - like a potential client could learn EVERYTHING I know in one 15-minute conversation.

I can't express how wrooong I was. 

These days, I don't take on a client unless we've spoken over Skype/Zoom, and here's why:

• When you have a real discussion with someone and actually hear their voice, you can easily see whether they're a good fit for you or not.

• I like potential clients to hear my voice and see my face because it helps them put trust in me.

• I started converting more than DOUBLE the amount of potential clients into booked clients after I started offering free consultations. Let's face it, people want to hire real people! Someone is far more likely to hire you if you feel like a real human to them, not just a distant freelancer they've been emailing.

Client consultations are a MUST. But they can seem overwhelming and scary to introverted freelancers, so here are my top 10 tips to help you master client calls as an introvert!

01. Limit the length of the call

Tell your potential clients that you offer free 20-minute consultations and most clients will respectfully stick to that timeframe.

If clients go over that timeframe, it will usually only be by 5-10 minutes.

As long as there's a boundary in place and you've emphasized that boundary, you'll have a reason to gently bring the conversation to a close if it starts dragging on and you won't feel unreasonable doing so.

To make sure your client understands your free consultations are only 20 minutes long, be sure to state that number in:

• Your step-by-step process on your website. (You have this on your site, right?? ;) )

• The initial email you send them about scheduling a call.

• Your online scheduling app, as you can see below. (I recommend using Acuity Scheduling* or Calendly to schedule client calls! These apps show your potential clients the times and dates you're available and allow them to book an appointment that gets automatically added to your calendar.)

02. Turn off the camera. (You can actually do that!)

Some people hate talking through computer screens, especially introverted freelancers. It can make you feel really self-conscious and awkward, and that's not the impression you want potential clients to have of you.

If getting on camera with your clients makes you break into a hot sweat, why not turn your camera off? Once you get comfortable conducting client consultations like this, you can then start doing them with the camera on.

Talking without your camera isn't shady - it's like having a conversation on the phone!

Calling with no camera on is better than not calling at all, so don't feel bad if you need to do it this way.

03. Type and talk

Sometimes, you need to discuss important information on your call and you can't afford for your client to mishear you. In these cases, it's OK to use the chat box that comes with video calling tools like Skype or Zoom! Just don't overuse them. You don't need to type out your entire conversation- just the really important bits.

04. Record the conversation

Some freelancers get nervous about client consultations because they worry they'll forget what was discussed. You don't need to worry about that - just record the conversation! If you're using Zoom, this is a built-in feature. If you're using Skype, you'll need to purchase a call recorder. Try Ecamm.

05. Create a script to direct the conversation

If you're really nervous, create a document that lists key information about the client, points you want to discuss, questions you want to ask, and answers to common questions you receive. You may not even use this document when you're on the call, but it's comforting to know it's there if you need it.

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Learn how to organize more than just your consultation process in my FREE masterclass. Learn how to organize other areas of your client process so you win more clients, amaze them by how professional you are, and turn them into referral machines! Sign up below.

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06. Be friendly, helpful and nice

Now is not the time to put on your telephone voice. Just be yourself. Be kind and friendly and aim to answer all of their questions in a calm and collected manner.

Try to avoid using filler words like 'um' and 'like'.

Instead, keep a glass of water by your side and take a sip before before you answer a complex question. It gives you that little bit of time to think about things and compose yourself. 

07. Look out for red flags

You won't always be able to spot bad clients from Skype conversations, but you usually can. If the client is demanding, picky, confusing or really indecisive, think carefully about whether you'd like to work with them. 

Here are a few more red flags to look out for:

• If the client is unsure about signing your contract

• If the client tries to lower your prices

• If the client talks negatively about the last person they hired for this job

08. Use a scheduling tool

As I mentioned earlier, I use Calendly to schedule Skype consultations and I love it! Instead of emailing your potential clients back and forth deciding on the best time to call, Calendly lets you decide what times you're available, and it displays them to the client in their own timezone.

It gets even better - once the client schedules a consultation, Calendly adds it to your calendar and sends you both notifications on the day of the call!

09. Never ask your client if they'd like to hire you while on the call

Here's the thing: clients get nervous about these calls too! The last thing they want is to be pressured into hiring you while on the free consultation call.

Instead, end your call by explaining what will happen after the call ends. 

Tell them you're going to email them within 30 minutes and your email will contain a contract and a link to their invoice where they can pay a small deposit to book their spot in your schedule.

Send this email within 30 minutes of the call ending!

And here's a secret tip to convert your callers into paying clients FAST: Give your contract an expiration date. This will provide a sense of urgency to the client, not pressure.

10. Be wary of clients who keep rescheduling their call

If the client has missed their session with you without providing an explanation or apology, think carefully about whether you want to work with someone who isn't good at time-keeping. It could mean they'll be one of those clients who never provide feedback or files on time. Picking up on this right at the start can save you from working with a nightmare client!