Dubsado boasts proudly that they’re an all-in-one CRM (as they should), but we understand that it’s common to get a bit scared at that thought. What will you do with all of the features? Is it too robust for your needs? It can be a bit overwhelming for a first-time user or someone who’s browsing different CRMs to invest in for their business.

When you understand all the different features and their functions, though, you can see how nicely they flow together. Every feature complements the next, and it really helps eliminate the confusion when you understand how they work. With that said, this is the beginner’s guide to Dubsado!

Whenever we need to create quick graphics, Canva is always our go-to. The user-friendly interface and intuitive builder makes it ridiculously easy to create graphics for practically anything we need. It’s the perfect graphic design tool for business owners looking to create marketing assets themselves because anyone can use it, no matter if you have little to no graphic design experience or you’re an award-winning designer. (Our in-house designer for Boss Project, for example, still uses Canva for many of our graphics.)

But what would you actually use Canva for? Anything, really! In fact, we can think of at least 15 ways you could be using Canva right now, which we’ll cover in this blog post.

Canva and Picmonkey are two of the largest editors for those looking for a quick and simple way to create designs. If you’re a beginner in graphic design or photo editing, you’ll probably find these two tools to be lifesavers. There’s always the question, though, of which one is the best and why?

In this blog post, we’re going to give a side-by-side comparison of Canva and Picmonkey, so you can decide which would be best for your needs and business!

When it comes to all the different options of CRMs for service providers, Dubsado takes the cake. It's all-in-one capabilities mean that not only do you have easy access to basically all the tools you could possibly need to run your business, but also that you no longer have to pay separately for each one.

Because of this versatility, it’s perfect for all types of service-based businesses, and we want to show you how. We’ve previously walked through how to use Dubsado as a virtual assistant, photographer, and wedding planner. Today, we’ll be covering how to use Dubsado as a coach!

The thing is, you don’t have to spend hundreds per month in expenses for all of these fancy tools and platforms to run your business. In fact, there’s one secret weapon we believe every service-based business should keep in their back pocket. It’s an all-in-one software that will eliminate the need for racking up on 17 different subscriptions, and it goes by the name Dubsado.

We preach a lot about consistent branding and how that’s important to your audience and to the client experience. However, it’s often thought that we mean the “big” places, like across your social media accounts or public-facing materials (think freebies and client documents). Yeah, consistent branding on these things is super crucial, but there are also smaller spots that are often overlooked.

Take your email signature for example. That one small piece of your business can upgrade your presence with almost no time at all. Depending on how many people you’re emailing and how often, your signature can come into contact with tons, if not hundreds, of people per day!

So why can it have such a big impact on your business, and how can you make it stand out?

When you think of “branding”, what comes to mind first? We’d venture to guess a popular logo popped up in your head, or a specific color palette. In all actuality, branding is much more than just the visuals that represent a company. It’s also the voice, personality, mission, and tone that make up a brand.

Even if the brand is run by multiple individuals, the brand as a whole should have its own personality that, well, personifies it! It should coax certain feelings from an audience and specifically target a certain group of people.

It all seems very confusing, but by following just a few steps, you’ll be able to intertwine your personality into elements of your branding and successfully convey that to your audience, whether you’re just starting out or in the midst of a rebrand!

As small businesses competing against larger or more well-known businesses, it isn’t as effective to just talk about what you do as a business. The key to standing out is the brand that you build. A recognizable and loved brand is one of the most valuable assets a business owns.

However, a brand is much more than just a name, tagline, logo, and other visuals. Even though these pieces do play a role in the bigger picture, there are other elements that bring it all together.

it’s super easy to fall down the rabbit hole of Googling which tools are best for which purpose, signing up for free trial after free trial, and getting lost in a sea of overwhelm when you notice that you’re 50 applications deep yet you only use about 2 or 3 semi-consistently.

So, to prevent you from going anywhere near that rabbit hole and save the time that you would otherwise be spending on trial and error, we’re going to break down our ultimate list of tools for new service-based businesses! We’ll be listing a few options for different categories so as to not overwhelm you. Some of these we currently use and some we’ve used in the past before our business grew and evolved.