It’s August! Which means Back to School time in any other year than the ridiculous dumpster fire of 2020. So forget COVID woes for 10 minutes and pretend you’re going back to school! The excitement of getting your class schedule and seeing your friends again, the joy of school supply shopping, the angst of picking out your first day of school outfit. Are you back in that mindset yet? Then it’s time to go BACK TO SCHOOL! Over the next few weeks in this blog series we’ll be diving into the wedding systems you MUST-HAVE for your business.
Booking Systems
Your consult went well and your lead is ready to book! That’s awesome! So, what comes next?
Proposal Approval
All CRMs have a way to send your proposal (package options, a la carte add ons, etc.). In Dubsado you can make it really pretty and branded or you can use Canva to create a proposal and attach it to an email within your CRM! Once that proposal is selected and signed off on by the lead, you’re ready to move on!
Sign a Contract
I don’t care what industry you’re in, YOU NEED A PROPER CONTRACT. Weddings have so many variables (especially as we’ve seen during this pandemic) that you MUST have a legally binding document holding yourself and your client to specific standards.
I highly recommend purchasing an industry specific contract from The Legal Paige. You need a contract from a lawyer that understands our industry! With this kind of contract, you’ll be covered for any potential situation. Things you must have are a communication clause, ensuring your day-of hours of coverage is set-in-stone and that any additional hours will be invoiced at your hourly rate, all of your duties are explained and signed off on (including what you will NOT be doing), your client’s responsibilities such as paying their own vendors and vendor cancellations, time limits on modifications and changes to the scope of the wedding, your travel expenses, etc.
If you use a CRM like Dubsado or Honeybook, you can easily store your contract templates and send them off swiftly to your clients for an electronic signature. None of that scanning back and forth!
Send Your Invoice
You can also use your CRM to store invoices and have your clients pay through a safe and reliable third party like Stripe! You can set the amount due now (retainer fee) and the amount due and due date (final balance, let’s say 30 days before event) for any upcoming payments. You can even set up payment plans!
Change Their Status + Add To Your Calendar
Once your client has signed the contract (and you’ve countersigned it!) and has paid their retainer fee, it’s time to do a bit of admin/housekeeping! And remember, a VA can do all of these items for you!
Make sure you check off items like creating a Google Folder for that wedding, creating an email tag for their wedding, changing their status to “current” in your CRM so they’re officially added to your Google Calendar and you’re unavailable for all other clients on that date (unless of course you take on multiple weddings!) If you’re a planner that uses Aisle Planner or a band that uses Knack, this is when you’ll want to take a moment to add this couple to your internal system.
So, do you have your booking system in place? If you don’t, let’s chat today!
