Should You Switch From HoneyBook to Dubsado? w/ Colie James

podcast

Apr 18

Following HoneyBook’s price increase announcement, many business owners have decided to switch to different CRMs—including Dubsado.

But is that the right move for you? Find out in this episode!

In late 2024, HoneyBook shook the world of many entrepreneurs—yours truly included—when they announced a rather hefty price increase.

That got me thinking… is HoneyBook really providing what I need from a CRM?

Almost instantly, I found myself in the Voxer streets with my business systems strategist bestie, Colie James.

We decided to move everything she’d worked so hard to create in HoneyBook over to Dubsado. But don’t assume that means that’s the right move for you!

In this episode, Colie returns to The Basic B podcast to share what she loves about both HoneyBook & Dubsado, how often you should review your systems, & what you really need to weigh when considering switching from HoneyBook to Dubsado.

Topics covered in this podcast episode:

How often should you review your systems & automations
Colie’s favorite HoneyBook updates
Colie’s favorite Dubsado updates
If pricing is a factor when choosing a CRM
Why Colie loves Airtable for podcast workflows
The most important thing to do if you’re considering switching CRMs
The UI differences from HoneyBook to Dubsado
What you need to have ready before working with someone like Colie
The benefit of support tickets for a client experience

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Meet: Colie James

Colie James is a Disney-loving family filmmaker, Workflow & Automations Guru, and the host of the Business-First Creatives podcast. Based in Denver Colorado, her heart pumps in helping photographers & creative service providers automate their processes, reclaim their time and get back to living!

With 11+ years in the creative space, Colie believes every creative deserves to build a business that is sustainable and profitable, and no one should quit their 9 to 5 only to work 24/7 [in their business].

The truth—automated systems can save us all from being overworked and overwhelmed.

This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!

The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows

Brittany Herzberg: Welcome back to the Basic B podcast, my friends. We have Kohli James back with us. Are we excited or. I'm excited. So I know that you're going to be excited just because you have to be so previously on the Basic B. When Coley was with us, we were Talking about what CRMs are, when a business owner really needs to invest time or money to set one up properly, and all that good jazz. That episode will be linked below, but you can listen to this episode separately. You should just go back, though, because it was fun and amazing. Today, however, we're going to focus more on how to recognize it's time to change your CRM and more specifically, my user experience of both Honeybook and Dubsado. So our story begins back last summer when Colby. When Colby set up my Honeybook. But I'm going to tee us up for today because what happened was Honeybook decided to drastically increase their prices, which prompted me to reassess the situation. Was it really working for me? Did I like it? What were the sticking points? In short, I didn't love everything about it. So I messaged Coley, as one does when one has CRM questions, to share all of that and to see what her opinion was on sticking with Honeybook or not. So we ultimately decided to move all of my stuff, all of my things, all back over to Dubsado, which brings us to needing this continued conversation. So, Coley, also happy to have you back and, you know, have you in my life in general.

Colie James: I mean, I know. And we were talking on my podcast recently about the fact that we have so many conversations in Voxer, and just every few months, we're both like, okay, we should, like, report a podcast episode because, you know, we talk all the time, and wouldn't it be nice to see each other on a screen because we literally only see each other when we record these podcast episodes.

Brittany Herzberg: I know. It's always, like, really fun when I see you out in the wild. I'll see, like a reel or a YouTube clip or something, and I'm like, oh, there's Colleen. Let me just go back over to.

Colie James: Voxer, where we just talk as voices.

Brittany Herzberg: I'm really excited to get into this conversation because I think it's kind of funny. Last time we focused, I would say, maybe a touch more heavily on Honeybook. Today we could focus probably a little bit more on Dubsado. But one thing you did address in the last episode, but I would like you to remind listeners, for anyone who didn't go back and listen to that Other episode, how often should we be reviewing our systems and automations to see are the workflows what we want them to be? Are we on the platform we want to be like how often should we be thinking about that?

Colie James: So for me it's kind of how often are you addressing your systems in the rest of your business? How often are you addressing like the emails that you're writing on your email marketing program? Because everything is consistent, right? And chances are if you are modifying one part of your business, you should really be looking at, well, what does your website say and what do your onboarding emails for someone who's joining your email list say? My preference is no more than every six months. I want to make sure that an entire year doesn't go by when you haven't reviewed your systems. Now you can do smaller check ins if you'd like but like every six months everyone should just go through their own funnel if you will to, to make sure that everything works. Because the first thing that I always tell somebody when they're like oh my gosh, leads are down, I'm like did you make sure that your lead capture is working? Like do you know that your contact form is working? But in general, anytime you feel like you are talking about your offers, you have tweaked your offers bare minimum. You need to go and make sure that the emails and your proposals that you have inside your CRM are still accurate for whatever it is that you are currently selling.

Brittany Herzberg: I love it. I was thinking back on my own behavior and you know how often I've reviewed my own systems and we all know if we don't. I had tech trust issues and I'm so glad that I've gotten through that. And largely it's been by working with you and installing like more and more automations and fewer and fewer like manual, like yes, this email can go out but I did the first time set up with Honeybook in the fall of 2022 and then I didn't touch it until the summer of 2024 and then winter, early 2025 is when we did Dubsado. So I like the every six months, like take yourself through that process. It seems really, really wise. But of course that would be smart.

Colie James: I mean and sometimes you're going to look at them and you're not going to need to make any changes and then it's just like ooh, let me just takes 15, 20 minutes to just look at every email that goes out for a particular offer and look at the proposal and make sure that you haven't added in an additional bonus that you want to make sure is on the proposal. I mean, it's just tiny things like that. We are all constantly changing what we're doing in business. I don't know of anybody that just leaves their stuff stagnant for like a year. So if anything has come to mind, if you are doing anything better, if you are simplifying anything, just make sure that your CRM is still as accurate as possible.

Brittany Herzberg: I love that. All right, so let's do a little bit of updates with HoneyBook and Upsado. So what has been updated on HoneyBook since summer? Ish. 2024. I know, loaded question.

Colie James: I'm laughing very hard because I don't know if everyone who's not in the Honeybook world is aware of exactly how many things changed in Honeybook in 2024. I think when I set your stuff up in the summer, a majority of the things that I loved that they changed were already in effect. But the one biggest thing that I will talk about today, and I want to just preface this with if I get you excited about automations 2.0 and you go into your account and you still have the exact same Automations, you will get it soon. Or you should be seeing a little request to add to Waitlist button at the top of your Automations page where you can request that HoneyBook actually add Automations 2.0 into your CRM. So that's the biggest change. And I want to say when it comes to like the difference between the original Automations that you could do in honeybook and the new set, it is like night and day. It is so much more complex. But in general, if you have ever wanted to have conditional logic, and if you're not quite sure what that means, let's say that you want to schedule a call with someone, whether it's a consultation call or a planning call or any kind of thing off a scheduler in the original Honeybook Automations, you could automatically send that scheduler inside of the automation, but you could not automatically do anything based on whether or not someone did not schedule the call. You could do something if they did, but if they didn't, you had to put yourself in a manual. Like let me see if they scheduled it and if they didn't, let me send them a reminder. Well now on so many different actions you can add a conditional step and say, okay, if they do sign up for this call, do this immediately. But if they don't within three days, send them this email or start this Other automation, like you have more options now. So conditional logic is going to. It's going to knock your socks off. If you currently are a Honeybook user.

Brittany Herzberg: Were there any other things that you really loved or that you maybe thought were kind of silly or pointless or, I don't know, didn't love so much.

Colie James: In Honeybook or in Honeybook. So there are a lot of things that I love about the Honeybook Scheduler, but the limitations on the automatic reminders definitely still need a little tlc. You can still only send two, so if I want a third one, I'm just out of luck. You also can't completely customize those emails. They give you a little field and they say, okay, these are the time and date information that you can't touch, you can't adjust. Tell me what else you want to be in this email, but you don't have the ability to add in pictures, videos, buttons, you have no styling ability. But I will say the Honeybook Scheduler outside of those reminder emails is actually my favorite over the Dubsado scheduler.

Brittany Herzberg: Oh, really?

Colie James: Yeah. I mean, the Honeybook scheduler can be put inside of the smart file. So like, let's say that you are someone who actually needs someone to, to pick a day and time at the same time that they are booking the service. I love that it's an all in one booking system inside of Honeybook. It is not an all in one system in Dubsado. You either have to have them pick the day and time off a scheduler. You can show them a proposal, but then you can't attach a contract, you have to send the contract after. But in Honeybook it can totally be pick your service, pick a day and time, sign my contract, pay me my money.

Brittany Herzberg: I love that. I love all of those actually.

Colie James: I mean, but you are also someone. I mean, you've already said you did the switch, but you are someone that doesn't need the scheduling process to be part of the booking process. So you were good to go in terms of switching from one CRM to the other.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I didn't notice that being so much of a thing for me. Okay, Dubsado. Has anything changed or is anything upcoming with Dubsado?

Colie James: I mean, upcoming is a better word and I'm glad that you phrased it that way so that I didn't have to be the person that was like, nothing has changed in Dubsado in a solid two years. No, the biggest change in Dubsado and I don't think that we really talked about the mobile app. The last time that we had this conversation, Honeybook has had a mobile app that was pretty great for a very long time. Dubsado only released the app in the last year and it has just gotten better and better. Now you can reschedule appointments, you can write emails, you can use your email templates. Like it originally came out and it was pretty basic, but now it's almost got like the same full functionality as doing something on a desktop. You still can't edit templates, which I will say you can't do that on either platform and I don't know that either of them is going to give you that ability ever. But that is still something that's missing.

Brittany Herzberg: From both Gotcha and do you know when we can expect some of these things?

Colie James: Yeah.

Brittany Herzberg: Okay.

Colie James: So I have personally not gotten 3.0. By the time this airs, I probably will. US beta users are getting it at the end of March. The general Dubsado user population is going to start getting it in June and then they are actually hoping to move everyone into 3.0 by the end of the year.

Brittany Herzberg: Oh wow, that's exciting.

Colie James: The thing that I'm most excited about in 3.0 now, in case you are a Dubsado user and you are listening to this, we are not getting scheduler updates. We are not not getting multi user updates. Like there's a lot of things that we've been waiting for for a very long time and I'm really sorry to disappoint you, but you are not getting them when 3.0 comes out. They are the first priority after 3.0 launches. But the one thing that I actually knew nothing about until I went to a specialist meeting is our new dashboard. Oh, our new dashboard looks so amazing. We are going to be able to see like the projects that were accessed most recently. We're going to be seeing our upcoming invoices, latest payments. All of these things are going to be available in your brand new dashboard. It almost made me cry. I mean during the meeting I was literally trying to zoom in my screen as much as possible so that I could look at this screenshot. So it is the thing that I am most excited about when I finally get into3.0 soon.

Brittany Herzberg: That sounds like a lot of fun. I'm very excited about this dashboard. I'm still a newbie over here, but like I'm still excited. Last conversation we were talking about price not really being much of an issue, but I did hint at price changes at the beginning of the conversation. Is that now a factor? Is that Something that people need to consider.

Colie James: I really think that it's a factor that you need to consider. And the thing that I want to say is at the end of last year, when HoneyBook announced the price increase, which I will say they announced it a few months before it went into effect. It did go into effect now, but when Britney's changed, it actually wasn't into effect yet. They had just announced it. But Initially Dubsado had two plans. Dubsado had their starter plan, which was $20 a month, and they had their premier plan, which is what both Brittany and I have. That's the one that includes workflows. Everyone needs workflows. I don't even know why they offer that base, but whatever. Yeah, $20 and $40. Now, HoneyBook's plans were very similar. It was $20 for their starter, $40 for their mid. And I don't even remember how much the top one was. I think it was 60 or 70, but almost all of those have doubled. And what makes that so interesting is that means that Honeybook's smallest plan is now just as expensive as Dubsado's premier plan, which means if you have $40 a month, if you spend it in Honeybook, you have a severely limited plan where you can only have a certain number of forms, versus Dubsado's $40 plan, which includes unlimited anything. I do really think that price needs to be a consideration for everyone. Now, if you're listening to this in the future, I mean, there's nothing to say that Dubsado might not have raised their prices since Brittany and I recorded this.

Brittany Herzberg: Right.

Colie James: So, I mean, keep that in mind. But as of right now, the bottom line is the simplest plan on HoneyBook costs as much as the advanced plan on Dubsado. And in terms of, like, features, HoneyBook and Dubsado are pretty even now. And so when you consider that I wouldn't pay the same amount of money for a limited plan that I would for an advanced plan.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. And even, like, from a user, in the brief time that was okay, they announced their price increase. I'm weighing the pros and cons and contacting you and deciding, yes, I'm going forward with Dubsado. I had to pay a couple of times for honeybook. So I had two basically different workspaces. I don't know the right words, but I had one thing for my podcast and one thing for my. My business and my offers, and I had to upgrade just to be able to use the podcast workflow like it was a pain in the butt to basically go from paying a thing and having everything included to then feeling like you're getting nickel and dime for everything. And I was like, but the what? So it was a very not amazing user experience, client experience at that point.

Colie James: And what I want to say for people who are out there, Britney had two completely different brands. And so you have to pay additional money for additional brands in either platform, but in Dubsado's platform, you kind of have the ability to pay for the second brand when you need it and then not otherwise. At the time of this recording, an additional brand with Dubsado is $10. So Brittany is not currently using an additional brand. We actually found a different way to run her podcast. And so right now it's in the same brand as her copy with be, but pretty soon she's going to be running it exclusively out of Airtable. And so she's not even going to need Dubsado for that. But in Honeybook, that was one of the major changes that happened between their mid level, which was pretty on par with Dubsado's Advanced. Now, in order to have those multiple brands, you need that top tier. And so that is more money, substantially more money.

Brittany Herzberg: My bank account was screaming at me when I had to make super sad.

Colie James: I'm so sorry.

Brittany Herzberg: It sucked because I did have you come in and do that system set up in Honeybook. And then it was. The system was like, no, you need to pay us more money in order to use the thing that you paid money to have like the person make. And it's like, wait, what? Huh?

Colie James: And I will say Honeybook did make it to where if you had a certain plan when they changed everything, you were kind of grandfathered into like the unlimited. But unfortunately, Britney wasn't one of those people because of how she was paying for it. So now if you have multiple brands, I would just encourage everybody to check out what the current plans for Honeybook are, because, I mean, they might have even changed since we recorded this episode.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, totally. I am glad that you mentioned the Airtable, though. So will you tell the good people about the podcast and the Airtable situation? Because you showed me that and I was like, I need this.

Colie James: So the thing, I used to run my podcast exclusively out of Dubsado, I think for like the first year that I did it. So when someone was inquiring to be a guest or when I was going to invite someone on my podcast to be a guest, I had an entire process that I did in Dubsado which was to send them an email with a scheduler attached. They would use the Dubsado internal scheduler to schedule the interview. They would get a guest questionnaire, they would fill it out. And then all of the emails leading up to recording all came from Dubsado. But the problem is, and this is not a Dubsado specific thing, I don't like it in Honeybook either. There is not a great way for you to manage the entire editing process of a podcast inside of your CRM and particularly if you have team members, which I do. So I have been running the second half of my podcast production, which is, you know, after the episode has been recorded and my podcast manager is editing it, and then it gets sent to my virtual assistant to make all of the social media assets and then we notify the guest. It was much easier to do those kinds of things in airtable where everybody could have access. I could still make awesome automations at each step. And so eventually I was like, okay, why am I still using two platforms for this? So I got tidycal, which is an external calendar. It's only a $29 one time fee. Sorry, it might be 39, I can't remember. But I now use that in conjunction with airtable to do my entire podcast process because Calendly Acuity and tidycal are all zapier friendly and the calendars inside Dubsado and Honeybook are not. And so now everything runs outside of my CRM, which is just more helpful for me. It gives me a bird's eye view of the entire podcast versus Honeybook and Dubsado are very project based, so there wasn't really a nice way to see everything overall.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, could not agree more. So my assistant is now getting that all set up and I'm so excited cause I got Tidy Cow last year and then I just never put it into practice because it was just me wearing all the hats and also like having a really crazy year. So this year we have health, we're putting the things together and the main thing that you need, I think in order to make all of this work is Coley's Download. Like you have this thing, so tell the people about the thing.

Colie James: I mean, the thing is called the Podcast Planner. Now if you are like, yeah, I don't want airtable, I don't want another program. I do have a version that I sell for Dubsado or Honeybook and it's only $97. So if you want me to tell you how to do the front end of your podcast in your CRM, happy to do It. But the podcast planner for Airtable is so much better. It is 1:47 and it already includes all of the automations set up for your entire pipeline. So it gives you a form or a questionnaire for people to suggest topics or to suggest guests. It has a guest interview form or questionnaire that you can customize specifically to your podcast. And then it has automations for the whole way. So for myself, like, once I have recorded an episode and everything is uploaded and ready from my podcast manager, all I have to do is click a button and say, ready to edit. And my podcast manager, Hayley gets an email. It says, hey, Coley has made this episode ready for you. Here's the link to the file and descript, here's the link to the guests questionnaire where they filled it out like everything is just there using fields. And it's awesome. And when she's done and she clicks that it's scheduled, it automatically gets sent to my virtual assistant to say, hey, Hayley's finished editing this episode. It is going live on this date. Please make sure that all of the things are scheduled. And so all of those things are there for you. All you have to do is customize the email so that it sounds like you gives your information. And then anything that you don't need, you can just turn off. So if you don't have a podcast manager, which why do you have a podcast? If you don't have a podcast manager, you can just turn those things off.

Brittany Herzberg: I love that. Hands down. It's amazing. Go get it if you have questions. D.M. coley. But like, just get the thing and like install it. It's amazing. Okay. This is really like the reason why I love having conversations with you, because I'm just like the ideator and you're like, oh, yeah, here's how you actually put that into place. And I just love surrounding myself with people like that. And there's so few of you that are really, really talented at that. And you're like, highly talented at this. So we had, I don't know, like a two hour or something initial call back when we were doing the Honeybook setup. You picked my brain. I told you what I knew. I was like, I'm gonna have to get back to you on some things. So I did. But you were able to just like dream up this workflow and it's just amazing. And you have all these different reference points for different pieces of tech and software, and you've seen so many businesses and their client experience and their workflows and processes so you're able to pull from that just like, vast knowledge. And I just wanted to take a minute to tell you I love your brain.

Colie James: Aw, thank you, Brittany. I will say, I don't know that Brittany is going to think to mention this to you guys, but in between me setting up her Honeybook and setting up her Dubsado, she did actually change her main offer. I don't know if you guys are aware of this. She's mentioned it on the podcast. But just in case it's unclear, when I set her up in Honeybook, that main offer that we were steering everybody towards was the case study, and now she's doing the SEO optimization. And the reason that I'm telling you this is because almost every piece that I had created for her for the case study still worked for the website SEO optimization. Yes, we're asking different questions in the questionnaire. I mean, Honestly, I think 50% of them were the same, but we're asking a few different ones. And although the feedback process is different than it was in the case study, like, no major changes happened. And I actually think that that's one reason why Brittany was able to go from Honeybook to Dubsado with very little tension, is because overall, her process was still very similar. It was just inside of a new tool.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up, because I really haven't broken it down on the podcast, so maybe I'll do that now. What I'm focusing on now, everyone surprised.

Colie James: So maybe she's gonna do it before this goes live. That's okay. Hey, you needed a little push.

Brittany Herzberg: I did, but I'm focusing on main website pages with SEO optimization moving then into blog post optimization and then into podcast optimization. And beyond. Beyond your website, beyond your things. So, yeah, we're starting people with the website things, but I'm so excited, and it's just been really good for me to have that experience on HoneyBook and then to come over to Dubsado. I don't know what it is, but I'm just, like, so much more jazzed up using Dubsado.

Colie James: And that is why. Okay, so everyone, once Honeybook raised their prices, my inbox was literally flooded. I mean, I had people like Brittany who had already had me set up. Well, I mean, honestly, people are in my inbox all the time asking me whether they should change back and forth. At the end of the day, all you can do is evaluate where you are and decide whether the switch makes sense to you. And I have an entire podcast episode on It. I'm going to ask Brittany to link it for you in the show notes. But the bottom line is, there shouldn't just be one reason that you change. For Britney, it wasn't just that Honeybook increased their prices. It was okay. They increased their prices enough to where maybe I just shouldn't assume that Honeybook is the best fit for my business going forward. And when she started to look at the other options and Brittany had already seen my Dubsado setup from being in my world, she was like, no, that makes a little bit more sense to my brain. And so I do want to encourage everyone, if you're considering a switch, the most important thing that you can do is create a sample account in the new CRM and take it for a spin. Because no matter what changes are going on, no matter how awesome a new feature is in a new CRM, if you get in there and you hate it, it is not worth the switch. And you will, in the end, pay for it because you will be less jazzed, as Brittany said, to go in your CRM and manage your business on a daily basis.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, for sure. Okay, I want to hand the mic to you. Is there anything that you wanted to ask me or any clients who have switched from Honeybook to Dubsado or vice versa?

Colie James: You're one of the few that I've actually done going in this particular manner. And you and I have already had some things that happened that have made me be like, okay, I think I need a guide that, like, explains to you the, like, tiny changes. For example, Britney sent me a voxer. And she's like, oh, my God, we're not sending contracts to my client.

Brittany Herzberg: We were.

Colie James: And y'all, I don't even remember where I am or the trauma that I experienced. Experienced. When she said that, I was like, what do you mean we're not sending contracts to your clients? I'm immediately on my phone, which, by the way, we already talked about the mobile app. I love that Dubsado has the mobile app, because I could get into Britney's account very quickly. And I'm like, no, her last three clients, like, the contracts are there. Like, what is she talking about? So I sent her a video, and I'm like, no, here's a contract. Here's a contract. Here's a contract. What do you mean you can't see the contract? And she's like, well, when I went in their forms tab, there was no contract. And it just occurred to me that even when I am giving you a very thorough walkthrough of how your process works that I need to have a checklist when someone goes from one particular CRM to the other to specifically point out. And hey, Brittany, I know that in Honeybook you can see the contract in the form list, but in Dubsado, it's just right over here on the left hand side of the project. It did not occur to me. Or maybe in previous setups I've like, pointed that out and I didn't even realize it, but, like, the horror that I found when she was like, we're not setting contracts. And I'm like, I tested it multiple times. Like, what are you talking about? But so I'm wondering if there's anything else besides I need a checklist to kind of point out those tiny nuances. Is there anything else that I could have done for you to make you feel more comfortable in the new CRM versus the old CRM?

Brittany Herzberg: No, I mean, the walkthrough call at the end, it's always very thorough. Perhaps it's just a lot of information. And I know for me personally, I need to go and play with the tech. I need to have those moments of scaring the crap out of you and being like, oh, my bad. Even when you showed me where the calendar was, I looked. I clicked on every single button, but it, like, did not register until you sent me the loom. And you're like, nope, it's right here. And I'm like, dang it. I looked at that. I did not register in my brain what was going on. So I think for me, it's just, I need some time to play around. But I am sorry for giving you the panic attack.

Colie James: It's okay. You know what, Brittany? I just realized I don't need to save this information for my clients. By the time this airs, I will have a tutorial up on my blog that talks about the actual UI differences between HoneyBook and Dubsado.

Brittany Herzberg: There you go.

Colie James: Because I've just never really considered the fact that that needed to be really clear and laid out. And I'm gonna be smart. I'm gonna do it in screenshots. Because what happens when HoneyBook and Dubsado each change their UI? I would have to re record an entire video. So it will be done in a way that can be modified every time they make UI changes.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, and I think that's so smart for you to make it a blog. Of course. I mean, it's me. Hello, SEO.

Colie James: You know what, Brittany? I'm gonna give it to you when it's done. I'm gonna let you optimize it for. For the SEO. See, that's why you need Brittany.

Brittany Herzberg: I love it. This is why we need each other. And Voxer and the things. No, I think that's really smart. I think it's going to be a great reference for people like me where that is happening, and, like, I'm a relatively intelligent human being. But there are moments where you're like, buddy, am I? That was one of them. It's been really great. I'm so glad that I have you as a person who can go and create those things for me, because I would just be so lost without it.

Colie James: And you know what? I just realized I need to do that for my students, too. I didn't really make it clear inside of my CRM Blueprint course because I don't actually have a lot of people that go from one to the other since I've had the course, but I did have a handful of people who bought the course in Dubsado, and then for one reason or another, they decided to switch to honeybook. I mean, I think one did it as recently as last month. And I've had many more people that were, like, going from Honeybook into Dubsado, but those people, like, didn't have the honeybook course, if that makes sense. Like, they went straight into the Dubsado course. So I think I do need to make a new module that's kind of like, if you're switching from this CRM to this CRM, this is what you might notice is different inside of the interface and where you find things. Okay, I'm jotting that down.

Brittany Herzberg: We are taking notes. I love this. We obviously had done my setup last year. We had the call, you had the workflows. You talked about how you were able to repurpose a lot of that, which I'm so grateful for. But what does someone actually need when they're contacting someone like you or considering buying your DIY course?

Colie James: I think that there's, like, this misunderstood concept that before you hire an expert, not just me, not just for your systems, before you hire somebody like Brittany to do your SEO, before you hire somebody to design your website, that you have to come with the concept you have to come with, in Britney's case, the keywords that you want to rank with, that you need to come with whatever workflow it is that I'm going to be putting in. And the truth is, I don't care if you come with a workflow. I can promise you that 85% of the time we are not going to use what you come with. It is just so much more complex than that. So all I need you to come with when you decide to like have that initial conversation with me to potentially hire me, I just need you to be willing to answer my questions. Because the truth is, if you don't have an answer, I am going to give you my opinion on what I think you can do. I'm also going to give you my opinion on what you could do. Bare bones. I will say I did start doing that. I am trying to make sure that I am not overwhelming people with systems. I am trying very hard to only give you the systems that you can currently handle and then just kind of tell you and later you might want to consider doing this, but we're probably six months a year out from you taking this on. I am trying very hard to like gauge how much automation someone can actually handle and what kind of touch points they need. But you don't need to come with any of that knowledge. You don't have to come to me with actual emails. You don't have to come to me with like copy. I mean, I will figure all of that out. You just have to come to me willing to tell me about you, your business, your clients and how things are currently working now.

Brittany Herzberg: Mm, Amen. We're just kind of like, yes, clap that one up now. We are never expecting you to come in with all the answers. If you have some cool, cool, I.

Colie James: Will take it and I will tell you why it's good or why it's bad and why it won't work in the CRM that you're trying to get into. But I just, I want people to take that pressure off of themselves. I also feel like some people use it as an excuse to not hire a professional. And again, I'm not just talking about me, I'm talking about in general, like, oh, no, I don't really know what I want on my website or I don't really know this. And so no, I don't need a website now. No, you do. Even if you start with a basic one page website, which I tell everybody, you should only have that for like a very limited amount of time. Starting the process is the only thing that's going to get you there. If you are delaying up leveling your business or your brand because you're waiting for the right time. It's like the people who wait until they lose £20 to have a photo session. If I waited until I lost £20, I would have no Photos of myself in this entire house. So, you know, don't do that.

Brittany Herzberg: I also do want to mention because this has come up and because I even think I shared this with you. I don't know if it was on Voxer or with our podcast conversation on your show, but asking questions after the fact. Don't not ask the questions. Oh, yes. Because I. I think maybe this is a Voxer conversation with us. But, like, I am that person where I am so grateful that you have taken so much time and you've been so thorough and detailed and helped me in such a big way. Right. That I'm like, I don't know. Should I ask the question? Ask the question. Don't be like, Brittany 2024, ask the question. Police here to help you. I'm here to help you. If you're running into some kind of issue, don't stay stuck. Like, that's the stuff that we love helping you with.

Colie James: And the funny thing is, I don't think I gave Brittany the same speech that I give everybody. I tell everybody at the end of a setup, there is no such thing as a stupid question. I will actually be angry with you. If you spend a week trying to figure something out on your own that it takes me three minutes to explain to you in a loom video, I will actually be angry with you. So please don't do that. Like, there is no such thing as wasting my time. Because guess what? I have already accounted for all of the support things that I will have to do for you after the setup in the price that you paid me. Believe me, I have already accounted for all of it. I give you a support ticketing system inside air table, so that at any time you get stuck, you can submit a question to me, and I will say, like, a handful of times it is something that I overlooked or something that I'm like, I didn't really consider that you were doing that or that you needed that. Let me go tweak that in that way. Other times, it's just me explaining to you how your new system works. And I either do that in the written form or I do it in a really short loom video that you can watch me do it step by step, and then you can understand it. But I don't want any of my clients to feel angst about trying to figure out something on their own, or, heaven forbid, you go in there and try and fix it yourself. Actually, that is the one conversation I haven't had with anybody in a really long time. But I used to tell People, if you go in there and try and fix it yourself and you ruin it, you will pay me to fix it again. Don't do that. Just ask me the question and it'll be fixed or it'll be adjusted or you will understand what she said. Yeah, just ask.

Brittany Herzberg: Just ask. There are no dumb questions. I'm asking questions all the time. Coley's asking questions. It's what we're here for and we like it. Yeah. So let us do our jobs. Okay.

Colie James: I love to do my job. Right.

Brittany Herzberg: Like, it's why we're here. So I do want you to mention, as we're wrapping everything up, the quiz that you just shared with me this week, because I feel like that's a really wonderful starting point. And I feel like you also may not have mentioned that.

Colie James: You know what? It is very tied to this conversation. Brittany. I would have never thought about that. Guys, I get a little obsessed with tech. I get a little obsessed with helping you help yourself. This quiz existed in another format, but it was specifically dubsado and now it is more generalized. So if you go to coleyjames.com audit I have created a new quiz that is going to allow you to answer a few questions and it is going to tell you how well you have currently set up your CRM, depending on which one you have. So, I mean, some of the questions are like, very specific to your CRM, but it's going to cover the basic things, like, is your CRM branded? Do you have your colors in there? Have you set up your domain name? Do you have workflows? Are you using them? Do they have automations? I mean, most of the questions are just yes, no, or pick an option. And so they are very quick. But in the end, I'm going to tell you how well I think that you've set your CRM up. And then the awesome thing is on the back end of that, when you give me your email, you're going to get an email series that cover the most important features that some people are incorrectly using, depending on how you answer the questions inside the quiz. And so I do think that it's going to be very useful in you determining whether or not your systems need an update or if you're fully using the CRM that you're paying for. So once again, coleyjames.com audit go there now.

Brittany Herzberg: We'll make sure that the link is below, of course, to your podcast and Instagram and all the other things. We'll make sure that that's linked too. And I'll make sure that Koli and my conversation from earlier this week is in there as well, because we're talking about all the places that SEO stalks you to and the best order of operations to address things. So.

Colie James: Yes.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. Thank you so much for coming back and joining me and having another fun CRM conversation.

Colie James: Thank you, Brittany. It was lovely to be here.

Brittany Herzberg: All right, I'll catch you next time.

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