Blog written by: Certified Dubsado Specialist Martine Cousineau Pouliot
Is there anything worse than hearing the ping of your inbox at 4:55 pm on a Friday before a long weekend? Whether it’s a new lead curious about working with you or a current client wanting to reschedule a meeting, an internal struggle begins.
Should you stay online longer and respond now…even if that means showing up a few minutes late to your date?
Or should you leave it and respond next week? But then you’ll be thinking about the email all week long when you should be pushing your child on the swing at the park.
As a creative entrepreneur, establishing boundaries with your clients is critical to your mindset and success. Especially if you’re a solopreneur without a team or additional support to lean on.
This is where Dubsado comes in.
Dubsado is designed to streamline and simplify your day-to-day business processes. With Dubsado's workflows, automations, forms, and templates, you can easily set and maintain boundaries in your business. Whether you're protecting your time off or avoiding uncomfortable situations with clients.
Let’s dive into how exactly Dubsado helps set these boundaries.
One of Dubsado’s most powerful features is its workflows.
Workflows let you completely automate your client journey so you can nurture leads, book discovery calls, deliver proposals, and send invoices, even when you’re fast asleep or enjoying a mimosa beachside on a vacation.
For example, when a new potential client lands on your website and sends you an inquiry, a Dubsado workflow can automatically:
• Populate a new project in your Dubsado dashboard
• Create a to-do to remind you to review the inquiry
• Send an email response with an invite to schedule a discovery call
• Block time for the call in your calendar
• Send reminders in the lead-up to your call
All without you touching a single button.
This means, no more worrying about responding immediately to inquiries for fear they’ll disappear, or dividing your focus by jumping between your work and admin tasks throughout the day.
Concerned about clients booking calls when you’re unavailable?
Don’t be!
You can completely customize your schedule and availability to protect your time off, CEO days, or early morning coffee time.
For example, while I set up 10 workflows for Isobel, a creative copywriter, she easily adjusts her calendar to fit her travel plans and protect her surf days.
Remember, you need to protect your time off so that you can feel re-energized when you come back to your work.
For some entrepreneurs, one of the hardest boundaries to set with their clients revolves around expectations. This could include laying out what communication and response time looks like to timelines to deliverables included on projects.
Without these ground rules in place, you may feel the need to adapt your processes for your clients, even if you don’t want to.
But when you use auto-responses (through canned emails and workflows) or create Dubsado templates for your questionnaires, forms, and proposals, you’ll be less likely to adjust your process for someone else.
That doesn’t mean your clients won’t feel supported. In fact, just the opposite.
With a streamlined, clear, and effective process, your clients will feel completely nurtured while you’re still free to do your best work.
When Samara, a brand and web designer, came to me, she feared that templates and auto-responses would feel impersonal. Yet, with only a few, simple changes, Samara is still able to add her own heartfelt touches to her communications without wasting time or tossing out her entire workflow.
Boundaries in your business don’t just include what you do with your time away from work. They also include the time you spend working.
So, if you have standard business processes that need to be communicated regularly, consider trying out Dubsado's templates and auto-responses!
Ugh, the dreaded ‘you’re late on a payment’ email.
Or the ‘that date doesn’t work for me…how about this day instead?’
What about the ‘last reminder to complete the intake questionnaire!’ email?
No one enjoys sending uncomfortable reminders for the 82nd time or going back and forth trying to find a call time that works for everyone.
So let Dubsado handle them instead!
One of Dubsado’s newer features is allowing clients to enroll in autopay on one-time payments, payment plans, and recurring invoices. You also have the option to require clients to enroll in autopay.
This means you won’t have to worry about missed payments or invoice requirements because all your payments will be fulfilled automatically.
Another feature that takes the stress out of awkward conversations is using Dubsado’s canned emails for those uncomfortable moments.
Instead of rewriting reminder or ‘not a good fit’ emails over and over again, write them once as a canned email. Then, the next time you need to send one out you can just head to your canned email folders and not second-guess yourself!
While these features may not seem like they’re setting boundaries, they protect your energy so you can spend less time worrying about the behind-the-scenes of your business and more time actually working in it.
The key to creating a system with Dubsado that respects your energy, focus, and boundaries is understanding your business, how you work, and what's important to you.
This is exactly what we’ll spend time doing on our Process Mapping Call and in the preparation work for a Dubsado VIP Experience.
Whether you’re looking to automate your entire business or just one signature service, your Dubsado setup will be unique to you. Book a free Discovery Call now to get started!
Sign into your Dubsado account to start setting your business boundaries.
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I’m Martine! Certified Dubsado Specialist & Client Experience Expert. I help brand & web designers and copywriters gain more time and financial freedom with personalized systems coaching and Dubsado VIP Weeks.
What makes me different? My VIP Dubsado setups start with 1:1 coaching so we can streamline your processes AND build a seamless client experience. After your custom Dubsado setup, you’ll also walk away with personalized training videos so you can confidently use your new workflows.
If you’re still running most of your business manually, it's time to take somethings off of your plate - that is what I do best. A Dubsado system setup just for you + in under ONE WEEK.
