In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin Dennis sits down with Amy Pearson, Client Experience and Systems Strategist, to discuss how wedding professionals can use automation to create a better client experience without sounding robotic.

Amy shares how thoughtful systems and workflows can help wedding pros respond faster, reduce inbox overwhelm, and guide clients through the booking process with greater ease. From inquiry follow-ups and scheduling tools to onboarding and post-wedding touchpoints, she explains how automation can strengthen client relationships while saving valuable time behind the scenes.

The conversation also covers common CRM mistakes, how to balance automation with personalization, and why tools like Dubsado and HoneyBook can be powerful assets when used intentionally.

If you've ever felt buried in emails, struggled to keep up with inquiries, or wondered how to create a smoother client experience, this episode is packed with practical tips you can implement right away.

Amy Pearson is a Client Experience and Systems Strategist who helps wedding pros turn inbox chaos into streamlined, client-booking systems using Dubsado and HoneyBook. She specializes in creating automation that feels personal, helping business owners save time while delivering an exceptional client experience.

Highlights:

• Why automation doesn't have to feel robotic

• Common CRM and workflow mistakes

• How faster follow-up can lead to more bookings

• Creating touchpoints that improve the client experience

• Where automation belongs and where it doesn't

• How to reduce inbox overwhelm

• Using Dubsado and HoneyBook more effectively

• Simple automations that save time and improve efficiency

Connect with Amy:

Website

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Connect with Kevin:

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All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. I'm here with Amy Pearson from Amy Gould and Company, and she's going to be talking to us about automation isn't making you sound robotic. This is, so I'm excited to get into what that is. So Amy, welcome.

Thank you, Kevin. I'm so glad to be here. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to chat with you today.

I'm excited too. So, all right, Amy, before we jump into the episode, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today?

Sure. I actually worked in human resources before I started working with systems up until COVID, which it seemed like a lot of us started our businesses during COVID, but my position in HR was eliminated and I was not really sure what to do. I mean, I've never lived in a pandemic or had to find a job when no one was doing in-person interviews.

happened to be looking online and saw a VA course. And I said, well, I've done a lot of admin stuff. Maybe this is something I can do while I'm sitting at home and I'm bored and I don't have anything else to do. Definitely can't go anywhere. And so I signed up for the course and started a VA business and did a lot of things on the back end of people's systems and realized right away that if I wanted to have more time to do client work,

I needed to have somebody or something handling all the backend pieces of managing clients, like getting proposals completed and contract signed and getting paid and all that fun stuff. So I put a lot of time into automating all of that using Dubsado And then as I started working with more clients, I realized no one really understood how to do systems. And I was very good at figuring out how to automate anything I could possibly automate. So I didn't have to keep doing it.

And ⁓ that's how I ended up creating my business as it is now and helping people and more importantly, wedding professionals create an incredible client experience from lead through onboarding and throughout their whole process that feels authentic and ⁓ helps them eliminate work on the backend and stop answering a lot of the same questions over and over again.

So all right, let's start with the big myth. Why do so many wedding pros think automation makes them sound robotic or not personal?

Well, I think because a lot of us have seen those systems in action that are very robotic and impersonal. One of the things I see the most is Calendly or Acuity and people not customizing the email templates that are sent out. So they're just like, your appointment is booked on this day at this time. And it feels very robotic or they don't put their personality and their voice into the system emails that are being sent out. And so that's where

Mmm.

you start getting that sort of myth that systems are robotic and they feel robotic and you can, I feel like there's a lot of opportunity there where people could improve that.

Alright, so if automation isn't the problem, what actually is the problem?

I think not putting the thought into the automation on how you want it to trigger specifically, like does it trigger automatically? Do you admit that it's just a candy mill and, or do you have it fire five minutes later? So it feels like maybe somebody took time to read the email and reply. Also mapping out the process and writing down what the steps are and then putting the intentionality into that.

Mm-hmm

Hmm.

the emails basically, because a lot of the systems are run on emails. You're sending that email saying, yes, I got your inquiry. Thank you so much. I'm reviewing your form and I'm going to be getting back to you in 24 to 48 hours. In the meantime, here's this video about me and how I work or something like that. But it sounds like you. It doesn't sound like CHATGPT wrote it or

Mm-hmm.

just cold and unfamiliar. It feels warm and it sounds like the person they've been watching on Instagram or wherever you show up. And I think that's the biggest thing is make your email sound like you. Hit record and say what you would say to a client or type it out yourself. But I find that if you record it and transcribe it, it comes across more authentically.

Meh.

Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought of it that way, actually hitting, know, like kind of just recording yourself and having that part of the process as well.

Yeah, I mean, you can always go and edit it later.

But if you say it, then it kind of sounds a little less. Sometimes when we write, we put so much thought into it. I know, especially as someone who went to college and had to write those English papers. Sometimes you can overanalyze things when you're sitting at the keyboard and figuring out how to write it.

And then we all do that. And then whatever we do, it's never good enough and all that kind of stuff. And therefore we just don't do it. So that's part of the problem as well. all right. what does bad automatization look like in a wedding business?

yeah.

Yeah.

So I would say, first of all, it is no automation. So if you don't have any automation, that's really going to be hindering you because people are waiting for you to follow up and you to write the response to their inquiry. And especially for a lot of wedding pros, that tends to take a long time during wedding season. You're busy going to weddings or doing the deliverables that have to do with your service.

Okay. That one makes sense.

and taking care of your clients and hopefully getting some sleep and eating something. sometimes the inquiries get embarrassingly delayed. And so the first thing I would say is no automation because your inquiries are getting colder the longer they sit there. And then the second is, like I said, not putting thought into it.

Hmm.

What I tell my clients all the time is write down your process from lead. What happens after they fill out the lead capture form? What do you want to have happen? And then I always recommend some kind of an automatic follow-up, even if it feels like it's sent right away and you just acknowledge that it's automatic and you're going to be back in touch because then they get something back. ⁓ again, I always recommend putting some kind of

Mm-hmm.

thing in there to keep them interested in learning more about you and what you do and how you work. A video is a great way to do that because people see your face and they hear your voice and you can use that and engineer it to have videos of your work or pictures of your work in there too. just even if it's a pricing guide, sending something that they can look at and keep

Okay.

staying interested in working with you because wedding couples tend to put in several inquiries at once for a service. So you want to be the one that responds the fastest. So I think not having that inquiry follow up is a huge loss for a lot of people. And then ⁓ maybe having things fire too quickly or having too many emails sent out at once. And that's something you can eliminate by

⁓

mapping out your process too.

Hmm, I never even thought about that sending too much is not good either. you've kind of touched on it, you know, like having some kind of automatic reply, you know, to an inquiry. Is there a magic time that it takes to, you know, to respond? you, because I earlier you mentioned 24 to 48 hours, like what's the magic you think in there?

Well, I know I did research and wedding couples typically expect that they're going to get a response within 24 hours. But the shorter you are on the response time, the more likely you are to be the one that gets to book them is what I saw. So having that automatic response gets you at least one follow up quicker than other people may get it done.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

unless you're just sitting on your phone all the time.

Yeah.

No, yeah, no, it's, you know, having a business, as you know, your work is never, never, never, ever done. So. Yeah.

I know. I'm always

thinking of, ⁓ you know, I could do this thing. This would be really cool. And then I'm like, it's not work time.

Mm-hmm.

No, that's I mean, I think we are all guilty of that, you know, as well. So. All right. So we talked about bad automation, automation, automation, I can't act. Can't speak today. I'm so sorry. But on the flip side,

You know, actually,

while you were saying that, thought of one other thing that a lot of people aren't doing. a lot of people are not using online schedulers still, which surprises me.

yeah.

It does surprise me because we've been using one here for probably 12 years now and it we, i can't imagine life without it. You know, cause actually while we've been on, ⁓ you know, recording this podcast, I just got a notification on my watch that, someone, you know, changed an appointment, you know, cause yeah. And so I didn't have to be a part of an email. I didn't have to try to find another date with them. They went into my calendar, hit click and done, you know, like, so it's

I love that.

You know, it's the time and the effort and I think the ease for the person on the other side.

Yeah, absolutely. I I really appreciate that my hairstylist has online booking and I can just go on and click a link and book an appointment. But before that, I had somebody, it was actually a different service. It was manicure. And I had to actually pick up the phone and call and make the appointment and it drove me bananas.

Well, it's funny, you're

literally the second person to say that about a hairstylist on the podcast. And that is why that other person actually picked that hairstylist is because they can make appointments online.

Yeah, and I can cancel them too, it's great. Or reschedule

if I need to without having to talk to her. I mean, I love her to death, having to get on the phone is not my favorite activity. And also what I love about schedulers is you can have the confirmation email, but also the reminder emails, which you did amazingly. I got your reminder emails with the links to join and all the prep work to make sure I was prepared for the appointment. And that is what...

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I see a lot of people not taking advantage of how you can better educate people on how to be ready for that appointment, whatever it is. people just, you know, hear your appointments tomorrow at this time, but what are you going to talk to them about on that appointment? What should they bring to the appointment or what do they need to know about what's going to happen on that appointment? So maybe they can start thinking about the questions they want to ask you.

Mm-hmm.

or things like that and just feel a little more led through the process.

Yeah. And the crazy part is you set that up once and you never have to touch it again. you know, unless you want to update it or change it along the way, but yeah, it's pretty, it's a pretty simple, you know, for what it does, it's, it's super, super simple and easy to do. So, all right. So we talked about all the bad automate automation. What does good automation feel like personal high touch actually look like?

Thank

Well, you basically said it. It feels personal. It's high touch. ⁓ What I like to tell people is when you're thinking through your process or writing out what you want your emails to have, you want to say what just happened and then what's going to happen next so that they understand those things. And you also want to put in kind of your boundaries. And one thing I always think about is, OK,

Mm-hmm.

The wedding just happened as a wedding photographer. You want to send them a congratulations email and thank them for having you be a part of their wedding. But then what if you also included in that email, I'm working on your sneak peek photos and they're going to be to you in the next three or four days. And you can expect your galleries in this time frame. And how many emails would that prevent you from getting?

Hmm.

And then the other thing I think a lot of people don't put a lot of thought into is what happens after someone books. And so a lot of times there's sort of this ghost town sort of period between when someone books and when the wedding is. And there's a lot of opportunity for touch points in there where you can help your clients have a better experience with you. And so that's something we usually map out on my strategy session calls with clients is.

Mmm.

Yeah, very true.

Mm. And mate.

Let's talk through that process. Like what are some touch points we can put in there so that you're sort of giving them little bits of helpful information along the way and building that relationship.

Is there like, that's probably an opportunity to upsell too at that point, you know, like just, but like doing it in an educational kind of way, you know, like, you know.

Yeah, you can totally.

Yeah, so you're helping your clients. You're helping them get more of what they want because they don't know. Most of them, hopefully, have never planned a wedding before and they don't know what they don't know. Like, for instance, when I married my second husband, I have been doing working with wedding pros and I went to the officiant. It was actually like a beach wedding.

Mm-hmm.

business and they did the officiant and the music and the photography and everything. And they said, can we do a first look? I don't see anywhere in here where you're mentioning that, but I'd love to do a first look. And my husband was like, what? And I think a lot of people of you didn't know that that was a thing, but at the same time, there are lots of opportunities to educate your clients on things they might not realize that they might want or need.

Yeah

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

so by adding those touch points in there, you can upsell or you can make your or their experience on the day of the wedding easier. Like, ⁓ reminding them to have the wedding rings and the flowers and the boutonniers or whatever you're taking pictures of all together in one place so that you can take those photos and you're not running around from room to room, getting photos of the various things that they want to.

have pictures of. I mean, that's just one example or a packing list to help them make sure they have everything they need on the wedding day, like a steamer. I mean, that can be helpful for a wedding planner to send or a photographer or hair and makeup people. There's a lot of prep to get your skin ready for your wedding day. There's a lot of things you can think of.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and just.

And like DJs,

DJs could have like, here's the top 20 songs that people aren't playing that are really amazing. So you don't have to have the same playlist that everyone has.

Everybody else says. Yeah.

That makes sense. So where in the client journey should wedding pros absolutely be using automation?

i think for sure I would use it managing leads because you can get that quick follow-up in there but then I think the really big missed opportunity is between booking and when the wedding date is because of the touch points that you can add in there and by the time you get to the wedding day they're like this person's amazing I love them they're probably already telling their friends about what you did that helped them have an incredible experience with the part that you played in their wedding

Mm-hmm.

Makes sense.

and then

i think a lot of people don't put a lot of thought in off-boarding either.

⁓

so true.

Cause it's not just like, you know, the here's your photos or here's your, you know, thanks for having us at your wedding. really liked being your officiant. You can send a review request or ask them if they know anyone else, would they mind giving a referral? Or if you have services that you provide that aren't related to that, but are ongoing, you can add in additional touch points and kind of follow up and build those clients for life.

Mm-hmm.

as well and I think that's a big missed opportunity.

Yeah, you make them fans of your business that way, I would imagine. Yeah. All right. ⁓ Is there any part of our business we shouldn't be relying on automation?

Yeah, build fans. I like that.

I think the points where it really requires more of a human touch. if there's a lot of, it really requires somebody to think through all the potential.

Okay.

pieces that need to be considered at that point. I'm trying to say it and think of an idea of what to explain it. But where it's not an if this, then that kind of scenario where someone needs to really ⁓ think through it or where you really want to have a customized response to someone. And so like the second

Thank

Okay.

response after someone inquires with you and they get your automatic email. Even though you might have a canned email template that is triggered ⁓ with maybe it's got an approve button on it or it sends you a to do and says, customize this response before it gets sent. And you go in there and you look at the form and you say, ⁓ yeah, I'm available on their wedding day. OK, cool. So we're to let this workflow continue, this automation continue.

And, ⁓ they said they wanted a beach wedding and they sent some inspiration photos or something. And you go, I really love the vibe you're going for, for your beach wedding. I'd love to be your officiant. I've done a lot of beach weddings. That's my jam. I don't know, you know, something. And it feels more personalized at that point. That's a really great way to use automation, but still have the human element.

Hmm.

Makes sense. I'm assuming you had a beach wedding. I was gonna say...

than, know, yeah, I did. I loved it. was awesome.

Would not recommend walking through the sand though. That was rough. I was really glad they were flat shoes.

Was it?

Where did you

⁓ in my hometown in Grand Haven. it's a right on Lake Michigan. And it's really cool because we drive by where we had our first look and where we got married every day.

⁓ cool.

Yeah.

that's special. Yeah. All right. What's the biggest mistake you see people make when setting up their CRM or their workflows?

Very special.

not mapping it out first for sure. Like just really thinking through the process and what should happen and in what order, even if you have to kind of rearrange things, but just having that process written out is a big first step. And I think a lot of people skip it and just go and try to build it. ⁓ and then I definitely recommend getting help if you're

Mmm.

doing more complicated things. If you're just building a lead capture form and a scheduler and a couple basic things, it's not that difficult. people spend a lot of time Googling how to do X on YouTube and ⁓ figuring it out themselves. And they waste a lot of time trying to do that and also ⁓ building in a tool before you realize if you like it or not.

Mm.

Hmm

So like getting in, taking the test drive, going in there, even if you don't really understand exactly how to use it, just like when you open it up and you get in there, does it make you want to shut it as soon as you open it?

Gotcha.

Go watch their guided tour, do some things like that and see if you like it, and then make sure it's going to do what you need it to do in your business. So if you have, for instance, a bunch of team members that you need to order schedule appointments for, like in a round robin style, does the scheduler for the CRM that you're looking at let you do that? ⁓

Hmm.

Do you need to work around for it and it'll still work to do everything else or what, know, identify what you need in the tool and then make sure the tool does that before you start just building in it because everyone has Dubsado or HoneyBook or Monday or whatever it is, 17 hats.

That makes sense. like test driving a car. You know, you're going to be in love with this thing that you're going to be driving for several years. might probably the same could be said for CRM as ⁓ well. Get in there and drive it around a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah. And make sure like it's going to be able to stick with you for a while because it does take time to ⁓ set it up and then get to know it and understand how to use it. I mean, I kind of jokingly call it learning to drive the stick shift, a stick shift car. If you've never driven a stick shift car, it can be a little bit scary, especially at stoplights on hills. So like understanding how to use it and

planning to have time to do that. Like, I wouldn't put it up against a tight deadline and have to have it all built and know how to use it right before wedding season kicks off and you're feeling very stressed or ⁓ it's just not fun.

that. No, it makes sense. All right, how can someone start automating without over complicating their system?

So I would say I would start off by ⁓ the lead capture form or the, you start off with a discovery call, I would start off with that and just do like one quick follow-up email like we discussed. That is the fastest way to start using a little bit of automation and getting familiar and managing your leads. ⁓ And then the next thing I would focus on is setting up your booking process so people can.

Okay.

Choose your packages and add-ons. And that's one thing I really love about Dubsado and HoneyBook is that they can go right, choose packages and add-ons, sign the contract and pay the invoice and everything's on the invoice that they chose. it's in, they can go through really quick. I mean, I've heard it referred to as the five minute booking process before. And you, it just is great because it eliminates friction.

Hmm.

People don't have to download a contract and sign it and scan it or go to another link and get the invoice. Go to find another email from your QuickBooks, for instance, and click that and pay it. It's all right there and smooth. And that's the second thing I would focus on.

All right, love it. Is there a few simple automations that immediately help improve the client experience?

Yeah, think the ⁓ aside from some of the ones we keep discussing, but the email right after someone books is a real important one. And that can be sent just, you know, once the invoice is paid, send this email and it tells them, okay, here's our welcome. Thank you for choosing us. Here's what's going to happen next. And that should be sent pretty quickly so that they don't have time to wonder if they made the right call.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. All right. Yeah. ⁓

And that one's super easy. It's not a tricky thing to set up,

but it, it helps take care of stuff when you're not in the office. If someone books their proposal at two in the morning, which for some reason I get a lot of proposals booked at two in the morning.

What?

We get a lot of clients pay their bills in the middle of the night as well, know, like through Zelle or, you know, through our online credit card processing. It just blows my mind. I'll wake up in the morning and I'm like, two people, three people, four people have paid their bills in the middle of the night while I was sleeping.

Which is a nice thing to wake up to.

It really is a nice thing to wake up to. So, all right. How does a better automation actually lead to more bookings or higher conversion rates?

That's a good question. more bookings, a lot of people, if they have an amazing client experience with you and with that automated process, if you put the time and effort in to really guide people through your process, people are really wowed by that and they talk about how awesome you were to work with. So that helps get more people going, hey, who is that?

Mm-hmm.

Photographer or officiant that you worked with for your wedding. I know you were telling me how awesome they were that gets you like more referrals and so people come book you or if you are especially if you are Continuing the relationship after someone has worked with you and building those fans for life Then that's more bookings because people are booking other services with you beyond just that one

Mmm.

And then

additionally, the one you brought up about how when you guide people through the process up to the wedding date, there are opportunities in there where you could share services that they didn't think about maybe when they booked with you and upsell. So there's three right there that I can think of. What was the rest of your question?

Yeah.

That was it. I think you covered it all, to be honest with you. yeah. Booking. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the booking rates, ⁓ the faster your follow up,

the faster your follow up, the more likely they are to book. And then the other thing is a lot of people don't think about at automating follow ups to proposals or inquiry, like your inquiry process, whatever the next step is. If they don't take that step, you can automate the ⁓ next things that happen so that there's there are follow ups like, hey, I noticed you didn't

⁓

Book a discovery or book our free consultation. Once you know, once we sent our thing and said we're available for your wedding date. Here's that link again, if you want to go ahead and book it or give them more information and some FAQs or things like that where people are like, this person's really on it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that's part of it. just being on it and being in front of their, you know, what is so many. God, who did I just had someone on the podcast that said it's now 12 times you got to have a touch point with these people before they, you really? So it keeps. Well, I thought it was eight, you know, and then it just like, you know, so.

I've heard like 30 and I'm.

We'll just go with a lot.

Yeah, no, but I think that's because we're also scatterbrained now with, you know, social media, what you name it in our lives, and it's kind of made us all a little ADHD. And so it's squirrel and we look the other way. But, you know, so the more touch points you can create with a client through the booking process, it makes it just like all makes sense, you know.

Yeah, mean, and I've I mean, if you think about it from our own, just our own day to day and what we do and when we're thinking about working with someone and you're like, we fill out the inquiry and then you're like, crap, I got to pick up the kids from school or whatever. And you go do that. And and we got to hurry up and make dinner and get someone to go to soccer practice. And then it's nine o'clock at night. And you're like, ⁓ I never responded to the person that I got to.

Mm-hmm.

an email back from them, but I haven't responded to it or, you know, two days later and you're thinking about it. I know I'm terrible like that with text messaging. I'll open it, read it and go, I need to write a response to this. And then two days later, that person's like, hey, did you get my message? And I'm like, yeah, sorry.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You know funny I'm guilty of the same thing so you're not alone in that one because sometimes if it Yeah For sure sometimes because people will use text message for like a whole conversation and sometimes I'm like I don't have The bandwidth to jump into that conversation with you right now, you know, like it's just like you said I'm I'm headed to baseball or I'm doing this or you know, whatever it may be with the kids and Therefore, you know, it just I can't jump into that and then I go back and I'm like, ⁓

So if you and I are guilty today, know others are probably the same way.

Yeah.

I don't know. I'm old too. I can get more done in a three-minute phone call than I could in an email or ⁓ a text message going back and forth.

Yeah, I'm not super fast with the thumbs.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not either.

So, all right. Well, speaking of inboxes and, you know, them being overwhelmed, how can systems help reduce your inbox from being overwhelmed on a daily basis?

Yeah, first of all, mean, the inquiry response, of course. But more importantly, I think the thing that I want people to think about is, what are the questions that you're repeatedly getting? If you're getting certain questions at certain parts in your process, that's like a clue to go, maybe I need to add a touch point in here where I talk about this particular thing that I'm getting this question over and over again.

can I bring alcohol to my, I'm trying to think, it's a greenhouse rental for weddings. And they kept getting the, are we allowed to bring alcohol? Well, no, you're not, but you can hire our in-house bartender. And so they added that in as a touch point, like, hey, thinking about alcohol at your event, here's how you can do that.

Okay.

and fill out this form and we'll put you in touch with our in-house bartender. Or here are the packages for in-house bartending. Like you said, those upsell moments too. So I think that's a great way to reduce the overwhelm in the inbox is looking for sleuthing out where people are asking those questions and then adding the touch points in hopefully just ahead of when you normally get those questions.

Mm-hmm.

So they're like, ⁓ it's like they were reading my mind. I had this question. You've already answered it for me.

It makes sense.

Yeah.

Well, it makes sense because if you're getting the same question over and over again or around two months before the wedding, you start getting XYZ questions, you might as well answer, like be preemptively sending messages to try to help do that. then like you said, the clients are like, wow, they really know what they're doing or they're ⁓ really on it.

Yeah. And

you've put the thought into writing that email once and it goes out at that time every time. You don't have to remember to send it. And so it's a win on both sides because it makes you look like you really know what you're doing, which you do obviously, but it reinforces that, guess is what I'm saying.

No, it

makes a whole lot of sense. So, all right, if I have a wedding business and I'm using, you know, like Dubsado, HoneyBook or another CRM, but I'm not seeing results, what are they likely missing?

what I typically see is people, you know, get it and set up part of it or it's set up, but not in the way that the system is really being taken advantage of. typically it's like, they're not using the tool the right way, I guess I would say. ⁓ I frequently see people having automation sending, for instance, appointment reminder emails and.

Makes sense.

Those should be sent by the scheduler to use all the smart fields and capability of the scheduler because it can fill in the appointment details, the location, the video conferencing link, and those kinds of things. And otherwise, you have to go manually put those things in, which I have seen people do, like go manually fill out what's in their contract or what's in their ⁓ reminder emails for appointments.

because they're not using the emails that are in the scheduler. And it's just a matter of understanding how the system works.

Is there

And so

there's some kind of breakdown with understanding that.

Makes sense. Is there a CRM Dubsado most wedding professionals are using right now that you see?

I see a lot of them using Dubsado and HoneyBook. ⁓ But I know there are a lot more that are built for wedding pros specifically to show, ⁓ it really just depends on what someone feels like they need in their own business.

Mm-hmm.

Do you have a favorite?

Currently my favorite is Dubsado, but I have to say HoneyBook has given them a run for their money. They've added a lot of things lately that are upping the ante and so they're both pretty comparable as far as wedding pros and what people are wanting in a CRM.

I'm

I know HoneyBook has added AI into the backend, so it will suggest actions to take with clients and do some things like that. And then it seemed like Dubsado just added something like that too, so.

Well, well.

I would imagine they're constantly updating and making their product better.

Yeah, I really

like the workflows in Dubsado and the actions that they can do. For a lot of people, the conditional logic in HoneyBook ⁓ can be very confusing. And if you're building it yourself, you have to be really specific with the rules that you're writing, or you end up sending emails when you didn't mean to send emails.

Yeah, that probably looks bad. know, like that looks like you're providing bad customer service at that point.

Yeah, I mean, I've had clients go, why is this happening? It makes us look like we don't know what we're doing. And I'm like, it's just that you accidentally didn't quite get super specific like you needed to on that trigger. it fired every time they did a certain action. I can't remember what it was, but so it's just a matter of, again, understanding the tool and how to use it. And that is sometimes we're getting someone to help you.

Hmm.

map out what that process needs to look like and what those triggers should actually be is really helpful because like someone like me or someone, another expert in your platform is in there all the time and understands the ins and outs and like, yes, you can actually do what you say you want to do or that's not going to work and here's why. And here's how to work around it. We spend a lot of our time going, okay, this system doesn't do X, but here's how to make it

Mm-hmm.

work.

Makes sense. Makes a whole lot of sense.

Cause every tool kind

of has the things that it doesn't do so well.

Yeah. All right. So ⁓ how do you balance efficiency with still making clients feel seen and taken care of?

That's a tricky one. Balancing efficiency.

I think ultimately the biggest thing is putting in those touch points where you are responding personally, whether that's an approved button on an email so you can customize the response. ⁓ so like, like not everything should be automated. Like your question follow-ups, if someone sends you a question, obviously you can't automate that. It would be really weird. ⁓

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

But you can, there are a lot of times where adding in just those couple sentences or just customizing a template a little bit is a great way to make that feel more personal.

And so I think that's the biggest thing is understanding where to make it personal and where to where it's fine to be automated and just have the template send. think to counter that, a lot of people are worried that they need to cost customized every single email that goes out and they feel like there's an obligation there to do that. And I would challenge that and say, there isn't always really a need to do that. You can.

Yeah.

Put the thought into the email and write it once and have it go out and that's going to work for most of your process.

Well, most people have a copy and paste place anywhere where they're basically doing the same thing and change tweaking an email and you know, you know, so it's like instead of having a copy and paste and do it manually, just let it happen automatically.

Yeah. And you can, a lot of the platforms have smart fields that you can, which are basically like a field where you can save a specific piece of information about a client. So you can put those in the emails and have it automatically fill in like their name or their spouse's name or their wedding date or any number of things. so it's customized to those things as well.

Mm.

That makes sense. All right, we're getting close to the end of the time here, but I have one last question for you, Amy. If someone wants to clean up their systems this month, what's the first thing they should fix?

I would go and take a look at what the current process in is and make sure that it matches what you're actually doing. Because over time, if you build something, it, your process naturally evolves and changes and you might not have updated your system to match that. So I would go through and kind of look at your canned emails and or your email templates and your Google documents or whatever you're using. And just make sure that those match your current process.

Mmm.

and go through and maybe tweak some things to add in those kinds of touch points that we talked about. If you don't have an email that follows up after someone books, I would do one of those. Or think about that, those touch points from booking to the wedding date and where can I add in those touch points? I think those are a few great places. Obviously a little spring cleaning or Marie Kondo-ing stuff. Get rid of the stuff you're not using.

Yeah.

makes it more difficult to use.

I would just go through and get rid of junk.

Makes sense.

Well, is it a good idea to put yourself in the system and go through the process like with a dummy email every, you know, year or six months or, you know, something like that just to make sure that it's triggering so you understand the client experience.

Yeah, I would absolutely do that. I mean, I always recommend people do that when they build it, but then go through it and see you can usually do it ⁓ with another email address and just open it on your phone and see, OK, what does it look like on my mobile phone? How does this message? If I was a client, does this make sense? And you can see how it feels from the client perspective, or I've heard from people to.

Mmm.

I've never done this, but like having a high school student or your kids, if they're old enough to understand what they're reading, like go through the process and be like, this doesn't make sense. I don't understand this. What does this mean? Because you're the one, you understand your process and you know the things, but if somebody doesn't know it, then.

Or even if you can just have a friend do it.

That's,

yeah. But I think we're all guilty of that. mean, it just, even with using like acronyms and different things, you know, yeah.

Oof. I'm bad.

I try really hard, but it's hard enough.

Yeah, no, but it

just yeah, it's hard not to think that way. And sometimes you'll be talking to someone and you know, they'll use an acronym. I'm like, what is that? that's an acronym we use at work. You know, like, I'm like, okay, well, I have no idea what the hell that means. You know,

Yeah.

All right, well, Amy, thank you for being here. Can you tell ⁓ our guests the best way to find you and connect with you?

Absolutely. You can find me on Instagram @systems_for_creatives i believe it's systems underscore for creatives. I should have looked that up because I just changed that. ⁓ And on my website at www.amysgould.com. Those are the two best ways to find me. And I have a freebie on the on Instagram and on my website that are that is a

Hehehehehe

pre five minute lead flow checklist and it'll walk you through kind of your lead flow and where you might be losing inquiries.

All right, cool. we will have all of Amy's information listed out on the show notes as well as on the email blast that goes out.

So, all right, well, thank you for listening. And for those that do not hit the subscribe button yet, please do so on all the platforms. And Amy, we can't thank you enough.

Thank you so much for having me, Kevin. It's been great.

You're

welcome. And then we look forward to seeing everyone next time on another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. We'll see you guys next time.