Sending a project proposal can be intimidating for a number of reasons. If you’re new to business and this is the first (or even the fourth or fifth) client you’re sending a proposal to, it can be mega nerve-wracking. You’re likely having a ton of negative and worrisome thoughts. What if they have an issue with something? What if they decide to go with someone else? Does it look okay?

These are all common thoughts to have, especially when this is such an important piece to wowing your potential clients and making it a no-brainer to work with you. After years of running as a service-based business and sending countless PDF proposals to clients, we’ve learned a thing or two about making it as less overwhelming as possible for you (and them)!

So, keep reading to find out how to send project proposals, plus what information to include!

There’s no denying that social media came into our lives and completely took over. For both personal and business use, 7 in 10 Americans are on some form of social media platform.

Businesses are turning to social media as their main source of traffic with most solely focusing their marketing efforts on platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. But can you blame them? Just take a look at the numbers.

Facebook has 2.8 billion active users every month.

416 million people are using Pinterest each month.

1 billion people are active on Instagram every month.

That’s a LOT of people and a huge pond to swim in that will only continue to grow, but that just means nailing down your social media marketing game is as important as ever. We know how scary that sounds, which is why we want to give you our top 6 tips to boost your social media marketing game for 2021!

We’re very excited for this post today because we’ve been writing about Dubsado for a while, and we always find some way to sneak in workflows because they’re our absolutely favorite feature of the software. Finally, we’re here to dedicate a whole post just to workflows!

Workflows in Dubsado give you the opportunity to automate so many processes of your usual client workflow. In turn, this frees up so much space in your calendar for you to be able to focus on caring for your clients, completing their projects, and giving them the attention they need without worrying about the techy stuff that happens on the backend.

We’ve heard from many people that workflows allow Dubsado to serve as their VA of sorts because they can set and forget so many different things. So, keep reading to learn more about workflows, how they work, what you should do before creating them, and how you can be using them in your business right now!

We’re no stranger to Instagram Stories, and we’d venture to guess that you might not be either. Even if you aren’t utilizing Stories in the way that you could, they’ve been around for almost 5 years now, and over 500 million people use them each day. (source) Their popularity is only increasing, regardless of the new takeover by Reels. Stories are, you could say, a classic!

They’re the perfect way to connect with your followers on a more personal level than just a static feed post, or really even an IGTV video. Stories are more real-time, with photos and videos posted having usually been taken right there on the spot. The plus of also being able to see your face and mannerisms and hear your voice gives your audience the opportunity to see the face behind the brand, which can be so essential for small businesses.

They hold a great power for business owners to build relationships and trust with their followers. But sometimes, they almost seem like a strange artform that some have perfected and some haven’t, so that’s why we want to share with you 8 ways to use Stories to boost engagement for your business!

We’ll gladly join the masses of people saying that they’re so glad that 2020 is over! And it isn’t so much that we expect the pandemic and all of the issues that come with it to just disappear with a new year, but more so that we’re now able to reflect on the year and kick everything in gear for 2021.

For us, 2020 was a whirlwind, but it was actually our best years ever. Of course we still dealt with setbacks just like everyone else, but we changed up the way we did things at the beginning of 2020, and it had a profound impact on how the year played out.

So what did we change? What actually happened for us in 2020? And what lessons did we learn that we’re carrying into 2021?

No matter what type of giveaway you end up deciding to try first, the foundations of running a successful giveaway are generally the same. If you follow these eight basic steps, you’ll have a clear control over your giveaway and can potentially reach a lot of new people.

Client and customer testimonials are one of the most crucial pieces of your marketing strategy. The journey you want to take people on to lead them to a sale consists of three main parts:

1. The “Are you in my head?” stage when you relay their pain points to them

2. The “Yeah, that actually would be nice..” stage when you have them envision what their life would be like if those problems weren’t problems

3. The “Okay, I’m ready to buy!” stage when you present the solution as your product or service

But– hold on a minute– hardly any one is just going to be ready to buy after seeing your thing. First they want to know if it will even work, and that’s when you bring in the big guns. (Big guns being testimonials, if that wasn’t clear.)

Testimonials can sometimes be the single defining moment of someone ready to hand their money over, or not. You probably wouldn’t purchase a product on Amazon if it didn't have a single review, would it? We as consumers count on those reviews as the proof of a product being worth the investment or not.

So, what makes your products or services any different? You can use those testimonials strategically in your marketing plan to be the final push that gets someone over the line and to the checkout page or paying their first invoice.

That’s why we’re going to share with you 7 places you should be showcasing client or customer testimonials, if you aren’t already.

We all know that testimonials are a crucial part to a functioning business. Unfortunately, many of us are met with fear and anxiety just from the thought of having to ask clients for testimonials/feedback.

“What if I’m actually not doing a good enough job to warrant a great testimonial?”

Thinking of actually bringing it up to your clients almost makes you want to run away or barf (or both). It can even seem like a super awkward conversation, like you’re saying, “Hey, I know we’ve working together for a while, and I think I’ve been doing a great job, but can you just confirm that by writing a testimonial that will potentially be shared with thousands of people depending on how good it is?”

Okay, so you won’t actually say it that way, but it can seem like it! So today, we’re going to walk you through how you can put this task on autopilot so that you can avoid the testimonial-asking anxiety. Or if you’re just simply the worst at remembering to ask for them, these tips are also for you!

It’s been over three years (really, close to four) since we launched The Strategy Hour Podcast. Since then, we’ve made the ranks of Apple’s Top 30 Business Management Podcasts, have been featured in multiple blog posts about business-related podcasts, have had X total downloads on Apple Podcasts alone, and we’re coming up hot on the heels our 500th episode (that’s a lot of freakin’ recording time!).

And while we’re so grateful that our podcast took off the way it did and has influenced thousands of lives and launching it was a blast, in no way has it always been easy. So, today, we’re going to be pulling back the curtain on how we launched our podcast, the challenges we faced, all of the hustle we put in to launch, how we plan and upload new episodes, the whole 9.

If the idea of launching a podcast has been tossing and turning in your brain, our totally candid and honest experience will hopefully help you determine whether this is the right next move in your business journey!