Do you want to start offering paid Power Hours or a mini session to your clients but are not sure where to start?
You can create a great process for this using Dubsado with the paid scheduler alongside with a great workflow will ensure your clients will receive a first-class experience, whilst streamlining the whole process for you.
With Dubsado you can create as many schedulers as you wish, which is fabulous for the business owner to needs a different scheduler depending on the appointment, for example, one for a FREE Discovery Call, a Kick-off call scheduler, and even a power hour/mini session where the client has to pay before booking. This is the reason Dubsado is fantastic for power hours because you won't have to pay extra to have a free booking scheduler as well as a paid one.
In this blog, I am going to talk about the paid scheduler to help you create a great Power Hour scheduler that you can embed on your website or send out the booking link to your potential clients. To creat a great process you will need to design a booking form (Lead Capture or Public Proposal), add the invoice, T&Cs (if required) and emails as well has a workflow.
Lead Capture or Public Proposal form for a PAID scheduler?
For a paid scheduler to work seamlessly, you must have a Lead Capture form or a Public Proposal already designed read to attach to the scheduler. Having either a Lead Capture form or a Public Proposal attached to any scheduler is a must if you would like to create a new project each time a new client books with you via the scheduler.
Remember attaching a questionnaire or a proposal that is not set up to be public will NOT create a new project nor will it kick off a workflow.
For a free appointment, like a discovery call then you will want to attach a Lead Capture form, this will then create a new project for you and kick off your workflow.
For a paid scheduler, it would be better to attach a Public Proposal rather than a lead capture form, this will create the new project and kick off the workflow so this is what you need to use to create a Power Hour or Mini session scheduler.
The reason I say having a Public Proposal is better for paid appointments is that with a Lead Capture form, the workflow will begin as soon as the attached form is submitted, NOT when the appointment is paid for.
This will mean someone could have a project with a workflow in your Dubsado account prior to paying. This can happen when a booking is abandoned when they reach the invoice.
So make sure your first step on the workflow is not set up to send a form or email to the 'client' as soon as the workflow starts unless the trigger is set to 'Invoice Paid in Full'.
This will avoid any lead from getting your important information for free if they abandon the booking at the payment stage.
If the 'Lead' does abandon the booking at the payment stage the booking will not get booked into your calendar, leaving that slot available still.
Now that you have your public proposal attached to your scheduler, it is time to think about which invoice option to use.
You can choose from using the invoice directly on the scheduler (this is the one I would recommend) or having the invoice attached to your public proposal.
The reason it would be better to use the invoice directly on the scheduler is simply down to if someone abandons the booking at the payment stage, the last thing you would want is for a booking to be added to your calendar without being paid for, so the best way to avoid that happening is to add the package details directly to the scheduler and not use the public proposal package option.
A good way to cut down the number of abandoned bookings is to display the price clearly in the title then the potential client will not have a shock when they open up the invoice and realise they cannot afford it or that they just do not want to pay that much. Having the price easy to find will cut down on any potential client from clicking on the tabs just to find your pricing so having this clearly displayed in the title will stop this happening. Each time a lead clicks through the tabs it will create an open invoice in your Dubsado account even if there is no client information added to the form at this point, then you will have open invoices in Dubsado that you will need to delete which can be annoying so it is a good idea to try and avoid this happening.
Example titles:
Power Hour - £97
Mini Session - £147
Would you like to add some Terms and Conditions to your scheduler for the Power Hour or mini session? Unfortunately Dubsado does not have the ability to send out a contract with the invoice attached to a scheduler. Well, I have a great workaround for that - all you need to do is to design your Public Proposal and add all your T&Cs to the end of the form with a checkbox, make sure you have the checkbox as a required section, then the lead will have to agree to your T&Cs before submitting the form. Check out the tutorial below where I show you how to set up a paid scheduler with T&Cs.
If you need the session to have a proper contract with a signature where the IP address is captured then you will need to have a sub-contract sent to the lead as soon as the session is paid for using a workflow with the trigger 'when invoice is paid in full'.
I hope these tips will help you create a great mini-session or power hour scheduler in Dubsado, if you need a more detailed tutorial, check out my tutorial page.
Get in touch if you need any help setting up your account.
Why not get in touch if there is something you are stuck with and see if I can help.
Click here to view a basic FREE tutorial on how to create a paid scheduler
Heidi - Dubsado Specialist VA
Check out my Offboarding Workflow Tutorial - this is fantastic for people wanting to learn more about how to plan, build and test a workflow
