5 Ways To Use Dubsado As A Family Photographer | by Dubsado Educator & Nashville Family Photographer Dolly DeLong Photography

5 ways to use Dubsado as a family photographer to better elevate and grow your own business

If you are new to the world of automating aspects of your family photography business, here are 5 helpful tools and features I am so happy Dubsado has integrated on their CRM platform! Warning: this is a long read but it comes with action-packed tips you can dive into and apply to your own family photography business!

1.  The Scheduler Tool To Book Mini-Sessions or Sessions

Although this tool is still in beta mode, don’t let that hold you back from fully taking advantage of this mighty tool! The Scheduler Tool gives your clients the ability to book with you instead of going back and forth via email with you (which is a huge time waste). There are so many cool features within the scheduler that allows you to link invoices, specific workflows, and it even gives you the option to only keep specific dates open based on your calendar!

I have personally loved tapping into the powerful scheduler tool on Dubsado’s platform (it is my secret weapon of fully booking out my mini sessions every season seamlessly) and I don’t know what I would do now without the scheduler personally (because honestly, I don’t have time to live in my inbox when clients write in to inquire about my mini session dates. They now can easily just click a date they are free and then proceed to book from there!)

To read about Dubsado’s scheduling features, click here.

To jump on the waitlist for a Dubsado Toolkit for family photographers (which includes training on how to use the scheduler tool on Dubsado) click here!

2. Dubsado’s Lead Capture Form

I know I spoke about this in THIS blog post, but I cannot get over how magical the Lead Capture form is (aka the “contact” me form). THIS form alone is by-far one of the best features of Dubsado (okay okay…everything is an incredible feature of Dubsado BUT seriously though, that Lead Capture form is AH-MAZING!) The reason why I love it so much is that it is literally an entry point (a bridge) between you and a potential client and the possibilities of how you can optimize it to fit your brand/business are endless! Plus, don’t even get me started on how you can optimize it by attaching all of your specific workflows to each dropdown menu option!!

The business owners who don’t take advantage of that feature alone are crazy in my mind! Like, if you are a Dubsado user and if you have several services you offer to clients,  you NEED to be attaching specific workflows to each dropdown menu item listed on your lead capture form.

If you have no literal idea of what I am talking about, guess what? I have created a FREE TUTORIAL on how to create a Contact Form that WOWS! (ahem, it’s free and it helps you get your feet wet in the world of systems & workflows which is like my JAM!)

➡️So to put this in perspective: if you are a family photographer who offers 3 different types of family photography services,  you need to have 3 different types of workflows attached to your Lead Capture Form that automate once a person fills out your contact form (that way they get the correct information immediately and efficiently and you stay on top of mind just in case the client has filled out several contact forms of various photographers)

You can access this free training HERE or click on the image below to get started!

3. Dubsado has Contract Templates For Creative Business Owners

Again, if you are starting out your business, you need to cover your business-booty by having some contracts in place to not only protect your business BUT to better serve your clients. (Need more proof as to why contracts are important, click here) 

Unfortunately taking someone at their word is no longer an option when you are running your own business. Even though people have the best intentions, they still need to have a contract in place to hold themselves & their clients accountable to the terms and conditions of the services offered.

Now if you are reading this and are thinking, “But Dolly, I am not a lawyer, and I certainly cannot afford the fees it would take to personally craft a unique contract for my business because I’m just starting out!” (Well, I’ve got you covered with two options)

The first option is to utilize the templates within Dubsado (yes, they have CONTRACT templates that you can easily swipe to use and fit your brand while you are slowly building your business from the ground up!)

The second option is to purchase a contract from a contract shop (Like The Legal Paige for example) and that way you can then copy/paste the template into a contract form in Dubsado (and then you have a template to use forever-which is the option I use within my business every single week when I am sending off contracts!) To read more about The Legal Paige, click here because I wrote a blog post all about 3 reasons why you need contracts within your business.

➡️If you decide you want to purchase a contract from The Legal Paige, use code “DOLLY” at checkout to receive 10% OFF your order!

*Note: The post above may contain affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase from my link I may make a small commission at no cost to you.

4. Dubsado Streamlines The Way You Get Paid

Just stop getting paid with Venmo already. Stop it. Need more reasons of why to stop using Venmo to get paid as a family photographer? Click here.

I know it’s convenient to just say “just Venmo my payment”, but that’s super unprofessional and not safe (and is not in alignment with their terms & conditions)

If you are setting yourself up as a professional business, then act like it when you get paid too.

🎉When you set up Dubsado, you can easily integrate PayPal, Stripe, and Square into your account so that when you invoice your clients they can pay one of several ways online. The bonus to this is this: you have an opportunity to get paid a TIP (*yup Dubsado offers a tips feature, which I personally love because my clients are just so amazing and have tipped me-even though they didn’t need to! But that goes a long way for my small business!)

Another bonus is, having a record of invoices so that you can share it with your accountant/CPA come tax season, and having a paper trail of your records is pretty dang important!

Interested in learning more about their payment features? Click here.

5. Project Sources in Dubsado

So another feature that is overlooked in Dubsado is the Project Sources feature. The reason why I love this feature is that it gives me a better insight as to where my clients are coming in from. I always put it in the Lead Capture form so that when clients/visitors fill out my contact form they tell me where they found me so that I can use that data to analyze where to concentrate my marketing efforts in. Obviously, I also use Google Analytics and have a Facebook Pixel set up on my website to track visitors, but I also love knowing where my actual inquiries are coming in from (in their own words)!

Data is powerful my friend, and I hope you are not using the excuse that you are “too creative brained” to understand numbers because that’s just false! You ARE incredibly creative & talented BECAUSE you are SMART! You CAN understand the numbers of your business AND still thrive as a creative! (Okay I will get off my soapbox now!)

Start digging into the project sources tab of Dubsado and start discovering where your audience is finding you! It may surprise you!

The Dubsado Toolkit For Family Photographers

I know I could go on and on about ALL THE COOL features about Dubsado and how to apply it to your business, ESP to your family photography business, but I will reign myself in!

If you are a family photographer who wants to have a better grasp on how to use Dubsado for your business, I am creating a resource specifically for YOU that involves the systems and workflows of Dubsado for a Family Photography business, to join the waitlist, click HERE

Or if you are a family photographer who wants to truly dig into your own systems & workflows of your new family photography business and you are motivated to better ELEVATE your business, I offer VIP mentoring days which you can read about HERE

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Meet Your Friendly Nashville Family Photographer & Business Systems + Workflow Educator

Dolly DeLong is a Nashville-based family & branding photographer and a creative business owner who educates on all things Pinterest, Dubsado, Lead Magnets & Email Marketing (aka pretty much all the fun automation stuff centered around those business systems)!  Dolly loves serving families, and business owners with her timeless, radiant photography.  She loves capturing the joy and emotion in both digital and film photos.

She also has a heart for serving the larger business community. Dolly shares her knowledge of tools like Pinterest, Dubsado, Email Marketing, and Business Systems with new creative business owners & family photographers in an encouraging and supportive way because she believes that even muggles can become automating wizards!

Dolly’s faith and love for her family motivate her to help other business owners find the joy and freedom she’s found in running a successful small business.

Whenever she has a spare moment, she enjoys watching TV (i.e. Survivor), loves eating way too many sweets, and listens to podcasts while running or walking. To work with Dolly DeLong Photography LLC, fill out her contact form here.

Interested in learning how to best automate a part of your business but you have no clue where to begin? Check out www.dollydelongphotography.com/automate to begin your automation journey today!