A comment I hear regularly is, I don’t have a lot of client projects going on at the same time so I don’t think I need Dubsado or ClickUp.
I would like to challenge this.
I believe the best thing you can do for your business back-end when you don’t have a lot of clients simultaneously is to spend time setting up your back-end processes so that you have enough time to test and adjust them before things get busy.
Most of my clients have been in business for years but have always struggled with mapping out workflows and setting up systems because they are creatives and this type of work does not come naturally to them. But they have worked with countless clients and walked them through their processes, they just were not as efficient as they could have been would they have had a system like Dubsado or ClickUp to help them manage both the client-facing side of design projects as well as the internal project management.
And I am not saying setting up systems like Dubsado and ClickUp should be the ONLY thing you focus on if you are still in the phase in your business where you need to take on every client you can get. The system projects take a lot of time and while you might feel like you’re productive, you are working on the back end of your business.
This is a mistake I made countless times because systems and processes are where I feel most comfortable just focusing on the back-end work. But none of this work is visible to the outside world. And while well-thought-out contact forms help you to qualify clients and thoughtfully laid out proposals convert leads into clients, when no one even knows you exist there will be no potential clients to fill out your contact forms.
Let’s get back to the question do I need Dubsado or ClickUp when I don’t have a lot of clients and dive into:
- The importance of project and client management for brand and website designers even if you don’t have many clients at the same time,
- Not having project & client management systems will limit your growth
- How Dubsado and ClickUp can benefit your design studio
- Should you start with Dubsado or ClickUp first?
The importance of project and client management for designers
From the moment you start your business, there are countless tasks you need to complete each and every day. From generating leads and managing the client projects after these leads have become clients to managing your finances & admin, writing content, tracking your metrics, evaluating your services or launching new ones and much more.
Without proper organisation and management, keeping track of deadlines, communicating with clients, determining priorities and planning your week so that you can stay on top of your workload will be challenging.
So let’s look at the common problems I’ve seen with clients without project and client management systems that affected their productivity, efficiency, and overall success. And not just that, it also impacted their confidence in themselves to run a successful design studio, it impacted the time they had with their family as well as how much they were present when spending time with family.
Disorganised client management
I’ve heard several clients say that did not have a project and client management system that they used to ‘just wing’ client projects. And I can completely understand that, because how are you supposed to keep track of everything that comes with a design project if you don’t have a central place that gives you an overview of the projects you have and what part of the design process needs to happen in the coming week.
Sure, you can go a long way by using your Google Docs or Sheets with checklists, but if you’re like most of my clients, you are not a fan or don’t have enough knowledge to use spreadsheets. This results in long to-do lists in your notebooks, countless Post-it notes and a huge mental to-do list.
Without a project management system like ClickUp (or Dubsado where you can also automate parts of your projects), it can be challenging to keep track of project deadlines and know which tasks need to be completed by when to keep to the timeline which can result in missed deadlines, incomplete or missed tasks, project delays and inconsistent processes. Which in turn, impacts how happy your clients are.
Inefficient billing and invoicing
This could be part of disorganised client management but I think it is important to mention this separately. Because if you don’t get paid for design work, your business is not sustainable and you are not able to contribute to your family’s expenses.
While you can send invoices from Quickbooks (or similar accounting software), it is a manual process. And what about tracking your invoice due dates and sending emails when an invoice is late? Where would you keep track of this?
When you don’t have a client management system in place, that can support you in (or even automate) the sending of your invoices and send reminders when overdue, this can result in delayed sending of invoices, delayed payments, inaccurate invoicing and lost revenue.
Inefficient Communication
Without a central communication system, it can be challenging to keep track of client requests, feedback, and revisions. While you can manage a lot from your Gmail, it’s not an easy process to send logo designs for feedback and you’ll need Google Forms to send the onboarding questionnaire.
Besides that this is all manual work that could be done quicker with a client management system, you’ll probably find yourself writing the same email again and again as well as writing emails on the fly because you don’t have any templates in place.
This can result in miscommunication because it’s easy to let emotions determine what you’re writing, it leaves clients wondering what the next steps are or what is expected from them.
Lack of back-end organisation
The back-end organisation of your design studio goes so much further than just trying to manage the tasks you need to complete that are not related to client projects.
You can think about things like tracking your time, planning your days, creating sales targets, managing your business plan and creating content plans and workflows for each type of content. But also your resources like your brand guidelines, contact lists, market research etc.
When you don’t have a project management system like ClickUp as the central place to manage all of these you’ll have trouble prioritising tasks, planning your days efficiently, tracking leads and spending too much time finding files in your cluttered Dropbox folders. This can lead to a lack of focus and productivity, causing you to spend more time on design projects than needed and not know what to work on when you have time to work on your business.
Not having project & client management systems will limit your growth
The result of all the struggles I mentioned above, is that without a project & client management system, you’ll probably find it challenging to scale or grow your business and take on more clients.
The clients I work with are often at capacity, and I don’t mean fully booked and making their desired revenue, I mean at capacity when it comes to time, energy and mental space with the clients they currently have.
So even if they would like to take on more clients (which they often do), they first need to spend time on the back-end fundamentals like streamlining their client processes and systems as well as setting up business processes for their finances and learning how to determine what tasks have the most priority to move their business into a space where they have the time to work on lead generation and marketing (instead of just relying on referrals) as well as having the time to take on these new clients.
And this is the biggest reason why I would advocate having client and project management systems in place even if you just have a few clients at the same time. As it will allow you to test and improve your processes and systems before you’re fully booked. And will make it so much easier to take on additional clients and allow you to take on more at the same time.
I’ve seen too many times where designers have been in business for years and had to shut down their business for a while because otherwise there just would not be time to get the systems sorted and that just brings so many risks especially when you have built your business on referrals and don’t have ways to proactively book clients.
How Dubsado and ClickUp can benefit your design studio
One of the reasons I think designers say they don’t need a client or project management system is because of the lack of understanding of how these systems can benefit their design studio.
When you say you don’t need systems because you don’t have a lot of design clients, I can see how this relates to Dubsado. As Dubsado (or Honeybook) are there to manage the client-facing steps of delivering your services. It can support you with:
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Project Management: Dubsado allows you to manage your projects efficiently. You can create workflows, customise forms, template your contracts and proposals and set up automated emails, which helps you save time and stay organised.
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Client Management: Dubsado provides a platform to manage your client relationships. You can track client inquiries, send proposals, and manage contracts and invoices, which helps you keep everything in one place and avoid missing important deadlines.
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Integrations: You can integrate your Dubsado with your website and Google Calendar, create Zoom links and send transactions to QuickBooks.
For more insights into what Dubsado can do for you have a look at these articles: How to use Dubsado as a designer & How to use Dubsado to offboard clients.
But to me, this reason does not apply to ClickUp. And I know it might be a bit confusing as ClickUp is a project management system and for a designer, projects relate to client work. But ClickUp helps you to manage the business-facing side of your design studio (but also works perfectly to organise your personal life). It can support this in several ways:
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Client Project Management: ClickUp provides a centralised platform for managing all your design projects, tasks like creating a mood board, sketching the initial design and preparing final brand design files, and deadlines. You can create to-do lists, set reminders, and track progress for all your projects in one place, which makes it easier to stay organised and on top of your workload.
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Business Management: ClickUp is highly customisable and therefore allows you to track your time, plan your days, create sales targets, manage your business plan, create a content plan and have content creation templates for each social media channel. These are just a few of the examples of what you can do as you can also use it as a resource to keep your brand guidelines, contact lists, market research etc.
For more insights into what ClickUp can do for you have a look at these articles: How to use ClickUp to track your revenue & how to determine your priorities with ClickUp
I hope this helps you to see the possibilities of both systems and how both of them can help you build a sustainable and profitable business even when you don’t have a lot of clients at the same time. Especially when it comes to ClickUp and how it can do so much more for your business than being a glorified to-do list for client work.
Should you start with Dubsado or ClickUp first?
This is a hard question to answer as I don’t think there is one answer for everyone. As a brand or website designer, the choice between starting with Dubsado or ClickUp will depend on your specific needs and how much you are able to invest.
The 2 scenarios I’ve seen mostly with my clients is that they:
- Don’t have any client or project management system
- They have Dubsado/Honeybook but no project management system
When you don’t have any client or project management system I would advise you to start with setting up your ClickUp. The monthly investment is much lower and you’ll be able to organise your business tasks as well as large parts of your client management with just this one system. But you’ll need alternative tools or documents to send proposals, contracts, invoices etc.
But what I often see with the clients who don’t have these systems in place is that they also don’t send proposals (only quotes per email) and contracts. Therefore it would be helpful to first set up a full client workflow and test this out and manage from ClickUp instead of building this out in Dubsado with all the assets and emails that come with it. Then, when your budget allows, add Dubsado to make your client processes quicker.
When you do have Dubsado but no project management system, then my suggestion would be to focus on optimising your setup because the monthly expense is too high not to use it to its full extent and then, when your budget allows, add ClickUp to manage the business side of your design studio.
I feel this is the most difficult situation to be in, as most clients don’t use Dubsado to the full extent and start to bypass the system and still send out emails on the fly or use Google Forms to send out questionnaires. But then also don’t have a tool like ClickUp to manage all the daily tasks or just to have one central place to keep all your notes, docs and resources.
I hope this helps you…
… to reframe your thoughts on if you need Dubsado or Clickup even when you don’t manage several client projects at the same time and have a better understanding of how these systems can help your design studio.
When it comes to systems, my advice is to build your systems a few steps ahead of where you are now so that you can grow into them. And while I don’t share the point of view a lot of systems strategists put out that your systems will be THE thing to scale your business I do believe it is an important piece (but there is so much more to it when you want to be the expert in your business so that you can scale sustainably) that can hold you back when it’s not there.
I could not imagine running my business, my travel blog and some personal tasks without Dubsado and ClickUp. And with this blog, I hope to inspire you to either work on improving your systems or start to set them up so these systems can also give you the same piece of mind.
