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Optimize, Systems & Automation Guest User Optimize, Systems & Automation Guest User

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dubsado Proposals

Dubsado is an all-in-one CRM that allows you to do many many things right within the software. One of those things includes creating a variety of different forms, like proposals, contracts, questionnaires, and lead capture forms. Proposals are one of our favorite forms because when you send them, you have the option to make it an easy 3-step process for your clients where they can choose a package in your proposal, sign the contract, and pay the invoice all in three streamlined steps

Sending them is easy, and creating them can be even easier. Dubsado has a drag-and-drop form builder that makes building your proposal a breeze, which we’ll be diving into later. So, keep reading for our step-by-step guide to creating Dubsado proposals!

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Optimize, Marketing Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Marketing Abagail Pumphrey

10 Tips for Networking When You Hate Networking

Networking is one of those words that can either make the social butterfly beam with excitement or the introverted feel more stressed and anxious. It’s not everyone’s favorite thing to do but if you’re a business owner it’s important to put yourself out there.

Making connections can help your business in so many ways. It enables you to meet influential people, gather info that may be beneficial to your business, and/or even just attain some biz support with like minded people.

Businesses are built around relationships. It’s truly who you know in many instances. So here are our 10 tips for networking when you hate networking.

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Optimize, Services Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Services Abagail Pumphrey

How to Create a Signature Service for Your Virtual Assistant Business

As a Virtual Assistant, likely one of the best ways to describe your services is “flexible.” Especially as a General VA, flexibility is one thing that seemingly allows you to keep growing your business. Because you probably don’t specialize in one specific area, you’re able to keep adjusting and bending to your clients’ needs and adding more skills to your bucket.

However, another common theme within the VA world is one that we believe can become detrimental: hourly pricing. As you become more efficient in your work and take less time to complete things, this comes back to bite you in the rear.

The solution? Honing into a signature service that you can offer at a package rate. In this blog post, we’ll be diving into what a signature service is and how you can create one for your Virtual Assistant business!

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Optimize, Leadership Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Leadership Abagail Pumphrey

Which is Best for Your Business? Group Coaching or 1 on 1

We’ve heard it many times before and we’re sure it won’t be the last time. You want to burn your business to the ground and rebuild it into something new? We get it, building a business is not easy and sometimes plateaus are hit and building something new feels like the best answer.

We know there’s a ceiling that gets hit over and over again with 1:1 service providers.You’re cruising along and then one day you’ve hit an income ceiling and time ceiling and it seems like the only way out is to pivot. You’re convinced that your done-for-you service is the timesuck (and it is), but your solution is to pivot to serve more people, but less hands on. And it seems sexy at first, we get it! But we’re here to do what we do best and poke holes in your seemingly seamless shift so you can truly find the best solution for you.

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Optimize, Project Management Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Project Management Abagail Pumphrey

When is the "Right" Time to Work on Your Business

You’re technically working “on your business” all the time, but what about the time you take out to learn from someone else? To get new insights and ideas, what to do differently, growth strategies and guidance? Your schedule is so full that you hardly even have time to do the things outside of work that you enjoy, much less focus on business education.

You know that you need outside help, but you continue to push it back because you’re waiting for the “right” time, for a moment where you feel like you have more time on your calendar to dedicate to it. The thing is, how many other things are you waiting until that calendar space opens up for you to get to it?

Keep reading to find out when is actually the right time to work on your business and the importance of actively prioritizing education, so you can start seeing drastic changes quickly.

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This Simple Title Shift Can Drastically Increase Your Average Client Value

It’s a no-brainer that if you really pay attention to the language and messaging you use, you start to attract your ideal clients. As a niche service provider, you know that you have the power to change lives and businesses with your service.

But one of the most important pieces of messaging that, with a simple shift, could change how you feel, your lead generation, conversions, pricing, and how you show up as an expert is what you call yourself.

We’re inviting you to try a new phrase to use outside of the usual “one-to-one service provider,” “creative entrepreneur,” “small business owner” terms that are so common in this tightly knit space.

Instead, what if you called yourself a “consultant” (whether that’s a marketing consultant, operations consultant, or [insert industry type] consultant)?

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Optimize, Systems & Automation Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Systems & Automation Abagail Pumphrey

5 Ways to Maximize Your CRM and Boost Productivity

CRMs and service-based businesses go together like peanut butter and jelly. Having a CRM software means that you have a digital database for all things pertaining to your leads and clients.

While we know service providers who are getting by tracking their leads and clients using spreadsheets or other methods, CRMs allow you to boost your overall client experience. You’re able to streamline the way you send contracts, proposals, forms, invoices, schedulers, and other documents, all the while maintaining a consistently branded and professional image.

Unfortunately, we often see service providers massively underutilizing their CRM, so in this post, we want to share 5 ways to maximize your CRM and boost your productivity!

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Optimize, Project Management Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Project Management Abagail Pumphrey

3 Strategies to Successfully Streamline Tasks and Projects in Asana

We’ve tried many project management systems throughout the different stages of our business, and the one that’s allowed us to completely revolutionize how we complete projects and daily tasks is Asana. It’s the perfect fit for our team and, honestly, Boss Project has never been more organized and streamlined!

We’re learning new things and ways to refine our systems in Asana every single day. Even though our project management is ever-developing, we’ve still picked up on 3 strategies that have really amped our overall experience with the platform. Keep reading to find out what they are!

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Optimize, Leadership Guest User Optimize, Leadership Guest User

Work Less, Make More: How to Streamline Your Work Week & Increase Your Client Capacity

It probably wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that a common dream amongst business owners is to be able to work less but make more money. It sounds like a contradiction, but it’s actually entirely possible to achieve. By streamlining your work week and increasing your client capacity, you’re able to get back more time in your business and make more money.

There are really only two levers to pull in order to do this: 1. Increase the price of your package, and 2. Decrease the amount of time it takes to complete a client project. In this blog post, we’ll break down what it means to accomplish each of these, so you can finally reach your “work less, make more” goal.

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Optimize, Systems & Automation Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Systems & Automation Abagail Pumphrey

10 Things Every Small Business Should Automate to Avoid Overwhelm

We wouldn’t call ourselves the queens of automation, but, boy, are we pretty darn good at it. Over the years, we’ve automated more things in our business than we can count, and it’s saved us hours of valuable time that we can focus elsewhere.

We believe automation is a huge piece of the puzzle in allowing small business owners to either avoid or break free of overwhelm. When you have to manage the administrative, financial, marketing, support, and countless other duties in your business, the stress can quickly build up.

That’s why in this blog post, we want to share 10 things we think every small business should automate to avoid overwhelm!

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Optimize, Mindset Guest User Optimize, Mindset Guest User

The Best Strategies to Avoiding Burnout in 2022

We know how easy it is to feel totally burnt out in your business. In fact, you may not have even realized that you’re burned out! You may have convinced yourself that this is just the hustle and grind that it takes to get your business going or to scale past where you’re currently stuck.

In reality, this isn’t effective nor ideal. Growth and progress don’t happen during burnout, so you have to come up for air and create a clean slate. Keep reading to find out the best strategies to help you avoid burnout in 2022, so you can continue to grow and scale your business sustainably.

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Optimize, Client Experience Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Client Experience Abagail Pumphrey

23 Ideas for Better Client Communication, Client Experience & Client Testimonials

When you think about it, client communication, the experience, and testimonials are the holy trifecta of an amazing service-based business. They also work as a kind of cycle– great client communication leads to a great experience, which leads to even greater testimonials when it’s all said and done!

We’ve had our fair share of not only working with clients but also helping other service providers work with their clients. In doing so, we’ve learned a myriad of ways to improve that client cycle. So today, we’ll be sharing our 23 ideas for better client communication, client experience, and client testimonials!

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Optimize, Services Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Services Abagail Pumphrey

7 Tips to Streamline Your Services so You Can Boost Your Team’s Productivity

We see you, frazzled service provider. We see you bustling and overwhelmed, reinventing the wheel every time you perform any admin task in your business. You’re building your proposals and forms from scratch, manually emailing clients repetitive emails in your process, chasing down payments, etc.


The overwhelming majority of service providers are, well, overwhelmed (and quite frankly, underpaid). We understand because we originated as a service-based business. There are 7 tips that massively helped us streamline our services and made a huge difference in our overall productivity, which is what we’ll be sharing in this blog post!

If you want to take this a step further with us to help you create a High-Touch Signature Service on Autopilot™ so you can work less and make more, we invite you to apply for The Incubator.

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Optimize, Leadership Abagail Pumphrey Optimize, Leadership Abagail Pumphrey

Best Passive Income Ideas for Your Small Business in 2022

In this day and age of online business, it’s extremely easy to give into the elusive passive income trend. We talk about it with our family and friends, and we learn from marketing gurus on the internet that the end goal is to “make money while you sleep.”

Sure, it does sound great. Being able to give little to no effort yet still have money rolling in sounds like a dream. Spoiler alert: What they’re teaching you isn’t really passive income.

Keep reading to find out the true definition of passive income, our honest thoughts around it, and what you should do instead.

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