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I decided to scale my design business halfway through 2020 (shout out to my fellow pandemic born businesses out there). All was fine and dandy until I got an influx of new leads and it occurred to me that, I don’t have a great process in place that saves my time (because your time is the most valuable!!!) and provides clients a top notch experience.

Here are 5 tools that took my design business to the next level:

A CRM Platform

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. This platform manages all interactions with existing and prospective clients. I personally use Dubsado. With a CRM platform, you can create invoices, contracts, proposals, intake forms, client portals and much more all in one place! Best of all? You can automate your whole process from start to finish with a workflow and canned emails. Most of the time we send the same emails to clients when onboarding, sending files to review and etc, workflows and canned emails streamline the process to bring you back that time in your busy schedule! What’s even greater is that when you set up your proposals, the client can pick out the option they like by clicking the respective button and then you can automate the workflow to send the invoice and contract right after they choose that! Other CRM platforms I know that fellow creatives use are Honeybook, Bonsai and 17 hats.

A Project Management Tool

Oftentimes, project management is completely overlooked. But there are SO many benefits to a streamlined project. According to Kissflow, some benefits to implementing a project management tool to your business are improved planning and scheduling, better collaboration, effective task delegation, easier file access and sharing, easier integration of new members, effective risk mitigation and budget management. And I couldn’t agree more! I personally use Asana with my clients and freelancers I outsource some work too. I can do all of this on the free plan and it’s a great place to organize all the tasks in the project I have with clients because you can add due dates. So there are boundaries and transparency in place to set you and your client up for the non-stressful process! I also use Notion to organize everything regarding my business.

Video Messaging With Screen Recording

This has been a game changer for my design business. As a visual person, it’s so much easier to explain things to clients with some sort of visual. But most of the time, not everyone wants to jump on Zoom for a quick share screen (and plus who wants to for just 10 minutes?) I use Loom to record my screen while talking over it to explain something to my clients. It generates a link for me and I am able to send it to my clients right then and there without having to do the back and forth “are you free to jump on a call right now for me to clarify things further?” As someone who also stumbles on their words, I am able to edit that part out all on Loom! It honestly has been a game changer, I am even implementing it when sending deliverables to review with a presentation and hop on video chat if it’s 100% needed. 

A REAL Contract

Before we even talk about this. PLEASE tell me you have clients sign a contract before you start a project. You might think “it’s okay, I trust them” but it’s not even about that though (although that is one of the points, it protects you and your clients) but it sets out the important terms of your relationship together AND shows your commitment and professionalism to delivering top notch product or service. You could always work with a lawyer to draft up your perfect contract. But there are resources online where you can buy templates that address your certain service. I highly recommend  Contracts Market to my fellow Canadians and to my US friends, The Contract Shop.

A Rabbit Hole of Design Assets

This one is definitely not necessary. I didn’t use this when I first started freelancing but just going on Creative Market has helped me gain inspiration for projects. This is my one stop shop for mockups, fonts, patterns and so much more! I mainly shop for fonts there as there are SO many beautiful fonts on there made by fellow designers! But what I love the most is that I gain a lot of inspiration by just scrolling through and I always save it for later and pin it to my Pinterest board! What I also love is they send an email every Monday of 5 free assets you can download. I will have to add a disclaimer saying you have to know about your license usage before you use these free assets. Most of the time they are set for personal use so please do not use these assets if you do not have the commercial license to use them on projects.

I hope these tools help you take your design business to the next level! I am all about protecting yourself and your time as an entrepreneur. You can find more of my recommendations of resources here and visit my resources hub for all things design, branding, website and the entrepreneurial journey!