As a creative entrepreneur and business owner, I am always looking for systems and tools that will not help me organize #allthethings, but most importantly save me time! Raise your hand if you can DEFINITELY use more time and sanity in your business!! (<—Yes! Me! All day everyday)

Game Changer System #1: HONEYBOOK 

About a year and half ago, I finally decided it was time to up my client communication game. I was using a hodgepodge of different systems, and it took a lot of time, and wasn’t the most branded experience for my clients. It was making it in my booking workflow, but I wasn’t thriving. I had seen a lot of different creatives start mentioning Honeybook, and I honestly didn’t really know what it was. New systems can be really overwhelming, and I already felt like I was drowning in my own- so just the thought of something new to figure out felt like it was more of a burden than a solution. (Anyone else been there?) But boy was I wrong. In fact, funny enough, I wrote a post exactly a year ago about how Honeybook was the new game changer for me. You can read that detailed post HERE.

Honeybook is an office system designed to allow you to easily streamline proposals, invoices & payments, send customized agreements to your clients and collaborate seamlessly.

I currently use Honeybook for these Top 3 Functions: 

1. I use the Honeybook Contact Form Widget which allows me to send an automated response to all of my website inquiries with a personal note about looking forward to connect with them, as well as an expectation of my office hours and when they can expect to hear back from me. You know how in your Gmail, you can add an auto response? Well this lets me do that for my website contact forms! This gives me such a peace of mind when I am traveling, or in another portrait session- to know that my new inquiries are being well taken care of. You can even take this widget further to automatically send a welcome brochure attachment about your services. By using the contact form widget, when the inquiring client fills out that contact form with their contact information, it automatically sets them up as a project within Honeybook, essentially starting our communication file.

2. When I am ready to respond to my inquiries, I have template emails all saved and ready to go. I also have my booking guide already uploaded as a file in Honeybook. This means, that I can personally respond to any inquiry with ALL of the information that they need, in a branded, professional presentation- in less than 3 minutes.

3. I can send my client’s their contracts and invoice to book- all in one professionally branded email. They can easily read, sign, and make their payment online (on desktop or mobile!) making booking clients fast and convenient for both of us. My clients are moms- and whether they work full time, run the household, or both- I have no interest in wasting their time or making booking a portrait session with me complicated. After booking, I welcome my clients with a beautiful, tangible welcome package- but I want the booking process to be as easy for them as possible, and Honeybook excels in this need.

But there’s more, Honeybook has been rolling out some AMAZING new features in the past week that I am SO excited about!! I am most excited about these specific updates:

1. They are now allowing us to really put our own branding front and center in our client communication. This means my logo, my profile picture, my brand color of choice, and even a branded email signature. I was initially really drawn to Honeybook for their clean, polished interface – but these updates make that experience even better!

2. You can now see when a client views their message you send within Honeybook. This is really important because it allows me to only follow up when necessary, as well as have that confidence that my message has been seen and read. (no more worrying about an important client email landing in some weird spam folder and having no idea!)

3. They are soon releasing an update that allows you to communicate within Honeybook AND Gmail. I am really excited to learn more about that one!

You can also integrate your reports directly to Quickbooks, send your clients questionnaires, track your leads to understand your largest referral sources for more intentional marketing, the list seriously goes on and on! I also love that they are a company who is committed to always growing and better fitting the needs of their customers. They listen, and they take action on what we the people need to have in order to grow our businesses and our brands.

I am considering making a behind the scenes video tutorial of the back end of Honeybook. Would that be helpful for you as you get started? Leave me a comment below if you would love to have access to something like that!

You can now watch a behind the scenes video about how I use Honeybook to keep my business organized HERE. 

** Best of all, you can save 50% off your entire membership- when you use MY REFERRAL LINK.**

Stay tuned, because next up I am going to share with you my other favorite business organizational tools for workflow and marketing- Trello & Planoly !!