103. Why I Switched from Dubsado to Honeybook (Or Did I?)

Felicia Pugh: 00:00:00

Welcome to episode 103 of the Mom CEO Suite podcast.

Felicia Pugh: 00:00:04

Today I'm diving into something I've never discussed on the podcast before.

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A CRM comparison between Dubsado and Honeybook.

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I've been a Dubsado user for years, but after some frustration with the platform, I decided to take a look at Honeybook and see if this would be a better solution for me.

Felicia Pugh: 00:00:21

I share my personal experience testing out the setup of one particular workflow in my business and I'm sharing what I learned about these two platforms, what I liked, what I didn't like, all the things.

Felicia Pugh: 00:00:32

So stick around for all of the details and enjoy the episode.

Felicia Pugh: 00:00:36

Hey friend.

Felicia Pugh: 00:00:37

Welcome to the Mom CEO Suite Podcast where faith, family and business come together.

Felicia Pugh: 00:00:43

I'm your host, Felicia Pugh, Christian wife, mom of two and life and business system strategist for mom entrepreneurs.

Felicia Pugh: 00:00:52

With over 10 years of experience working behind the scenes of businesses and ministries and as a work from home mompreneur, I'm here to share my personal journey and practical strategies to help you design systems that bring peace to your work and home life.

Felicia Pugh: 00:01:08

While many strive for balance, I believe it's harmony, an integrated flow that works for you, that truly sustains.

Felicia Pugh: 00:01:15

Together we'll explore how to grow your service based business in a way that is sustainable and keeps your family at the heart of it all.

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Plus hear real life stories and expertise from other Mompreneurs who are walking the same path.

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Motherhood gets hard, entrepreneurship gets hard.

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But together we can do hard things.

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Welcome to the suite.

Felicia Pugh: 00:01:40

Hey friend, thanks for tuning in.

Felicia Pugh: 00:01:41

Thank you for being here.

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So let's just get right into this.

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For as long as I have had this podcast, I have only talked about using Dubsado as a CRM in my business.

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And so why now am I doing a comparison of Dubsado and Honeybook?

Felicia Pugh: 00:01:57

Okay, let me take you back a little bit.

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Back in: 2021

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I also was a Dubsado specialist during their first round that they offered the program and after comparing the two platforms back then I shifted more towards using Dubsado because of their automation capabilities that they had at the time.

Felicia Pugh: 00:02:33

Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:02:33

And I have loved using Dubsado over the years, but a recent frustration caused me to look into Honeybook and so that frustration really is focused around their payment plan options.

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Like there's something in my mind that I want to be able to do and yes, it's possible end up subtle but the way that you have to go about setting it up, it's a very roundabout way.

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It's not straightforward.

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And I just think that in the season that I'm in now, after having two children, my patience level is probably a little bit lower than it was a few years ago when I, you know, had time to kind of play around in these different platforms and figure things out and be okay with all of the workarounds or just kind of missing features.

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And so I was really frustrated that I could not, in a very straightforward way, just set up this payment plan option on a public proposal where a client could select which payment plan they wanted to go with.

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And so I looked into honeybook because I saw something where they had recently released a feature that the client could select their payment plan.

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I looked into it a little bit.

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It was enough information for me to start digging a little bit deeper into HoneyBook to see if this would be a better solution for me and for the things that I was trying to do.

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So that's what I did.

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I have an upcoming Black Friday offer.

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is after Black Friday Weekend: 2024

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This is just a one off session where we map out your client experience workflow from start to finish.

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So from onboarding to offboarding, we map it out.

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You'll walk away with a workflow mapping spreadsheet with all of those details step by step, outlined in a way that will be easy for you to use when it's time for you to implement and translate that into a CRM, whether it's Dubsado or Honeybook.

Felicia Pugh: 00:04:45

Right?

Felicia Pugh: 00:04:45

So that's my Black Friday offer.

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And if you want more details about that, just click the link in the show notes to secure your spot.

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And it's only 179.

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So I said, okay, let me test out Honeybook for this new offer that I'm launching.

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It's just a one time session.

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I could do like a landing page type thing, just give some information, pay the invoice, and then schedule the appointment.

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Very straightforward and to the point.

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And so today I'm going to just share what happened as I was going through this experience of testing out HoneyBook for this particular process.

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Now before I hop into that though, I want to just kind of set the stage.

Felicia Pugh: 00:05:29

And let me just say, this is all from my perspective, my preference from the way my brain thinks, and also just based on My needs as a business owner.

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And so for me, when it comes to a CRM, the thing that I'm really looking for is being able to keep track of my leads.

Felicia Pugh: 00:05:48

Very basic things, sign contracts, pay invoices that can be one off or recurring.

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The payment plan thing was pretty big for me.

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And then also automation, automating as much as possible is huge for me.

Felicia Pugh: 00:06:02

Okay, so those are kind of at the top of my list, payment plans and automation.

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And so like I mentioned before, I lean more towards, towards Dubsado because at the time they had more automation capabilities than HoneyBook.

Felicia Pugh: 00:06:15

Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:06:16

And so, yeah, let's just hop into this.

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What happened when I started testing out HoneyBook.

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Now initially I will say that I prefer this is just me.

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I prefer Dubsado's, their interface over HoneyBooks.

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And I have heard people say the opposite.

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So again, this is based on my personal experience and my preference.

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I just kind of like the way Dubsado is set up.

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Let me just go into some things that I did like about honeybook.

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I love their payment features.

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It's just weaker.

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It's a little bit more straightforward.

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It's very easy to set up.

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And from a client perspective, when they view their invoice and then they go to make their payment, it's just very smooth, it's seamless.

Felicia Pugh: 00:07:05

Again, it's a sleek process and I just like how easy it is to set up.

Felicia Pugh: 00:07:09

And, you know, that was a pain point for me coming from Dubsado.

Felicia Pugh: 00:07:13

Now, the new feature that I mentioned that they have as it relates to clients being able to select their payment plan, it's a great feature.

Felicia Pugh: 00:07:21

So let's just say you have this offer that's, I don't know, $5,000 and you want clients to be able to pay in installments.

Felicia Pugh: 00:07:31

You can set the max amount of installments that you would allow them to break their payment up into.

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So let's say maybe six is the max that you will allow them.

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So when they get their invoice, they will have this option to do it in two installments, to do it in four installments, to do it in five.

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They get to select the amount of installments up to the max that you set.

Felicia Pugh: 00:07:56

Okay, So I think that's a great feature.

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And they can see what each payment will be and when it will be due.

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So again, I think that's really amazing.

Felicia Pugh: 00:08:05

What I specifically was looking to be able to do was to set a deposit amount, not splitting it up into equal payments, but set a specific deposit amount and then split out the rest of the payments equally that you cannot do in Honeybook, and you cannot do that straightforwardly in Dubsado either.

Felicia Pugh: 00:08:27

Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:08:27

So for each, I would have to manually go in and, you know, manipulate some things.

Felicia Pugh: 00:08:34

Outside of that.

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When it comes to Honeybook, I like their.

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I just like their payment processing experience better than Dubsado.

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What I also liked about Honeybook was the fact that it was very easy to customize the fonts and the branding for the account.

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It's just like a click of a button, a few clicks of a button.

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With Dubsado, it's not as simple.

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You have to use code to add, you know, special fonts and things to your account.

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And so I love that with honeybook, they had more options to customize the branding, like more places to be able to do it.

Felicia Pugh: 00:09:12

And it just looked nice, Right.

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Even on the invoice, I can change the background color to match my branding colors.

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And it was very simple and easy to do.

Felicia Pugh: 00:09:21

Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:09:21

So those were just some of the things that I did love about Honeybook.

Felicia Pugh: 00:09:25

Okay.

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I was excited to test out their new feature.

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So they have a new automation builder that has conditional logic.

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And I thought, okay, this is good.

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Honeybook did not have this amount of automations available when I first was looking into them.

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So I was excited to try out their new automation builder with the conditional logic.

Felicia Pugh: 00:09:48

Okay.

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So I kind of set up the first half of the workflow, like just the landing page and the scheduler and the payments, the invoice, I set that up right, and it was pretty smooth.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:06

With Honeybook, you know, it didn't take too long.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:07

I like how easy it was to customize that initial landing page.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:12

And they have this thing called Smart files where you can kind of build out this document that has different pages and it's really customizable.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:20

So I do like their Smart files feature.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:24

I will say that for me, it was a little bit confusing.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:28

Just the way that they have their.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:32

Their different types of documents just placed within the platform is a little bit confusing for me.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:39

Again, I like how straightforward it is for Dubsado.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:44

It's like you go in there and you see all of the contracts, you see all of the questionnaires, you see all of the lead capture forms.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:52

Like, it's just very straight into the point.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:54

But the way it's set up in Honeybook, it's like multiple places.

Felicia Pugh: 00:10:56

You can find these different things, and it's just not as intuitive, at least for me, for the way their files are laid out.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:06

Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:07

So I set up the first part of my workflow.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:09

And it seemed like, okay, I'm going to go forward and Continue on with HoneyBook, I was really excited about it.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:15

But as I continue digging into just setting up the automation and then just finishing off the second half of my workflow using the new Honeybook automation builder, I ran into a few things that kind of caused me to pause a little bit.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:33

So let me get into some of the things that I just did not prefer when it came to Honeybook.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:40

Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:40

Or I'll just say Dubsado did a better job of some of these things.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:44

I just kind of have this list here and I'm just going to go through it.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:48

So in Dubsado you can, when you create a task, which you can create a task through an automation, you can do that in Honeybook as well.

Felicia Pugh: 00:11:57

But with Dubsado you can add smart fields to your tasks via automation.

Felicia Pugh: 00:12:04

And I think the thing that I kind of realized about the way that I work is that I want convenience.

Felicia Pugh: 00:12:13

Like I mentioned before, I want to be able to automate as much as possible and I want things to just be convenient for me so I don't have to manually add these little details on the back end or come back in after something is done and manually update things.

Felicia Pugh: 00:12:30

So in Dubsado, you can add smart fields to your tasks through the automation.

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You cannot do that in Honeybook.

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So what this looks like is if I create a task that says review somebody's application, right?

Felicia Pugh: 00:12:44

In Honeybook it will just say review application.

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But in Dubsado I can have the task generate and say review Felicia Pugh's application and you can bring in dynamic fields.

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So whatever the client's name is or the prospect's name is, it will pull that in.

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The next thing that I liked about Dubsado over honeybook is that in Dubsado, when it comes to their workflows, I can create a workflow and then based on the circumstance, I can manually apply that workflow.

Felicia Pugh: 00:13:17

Okay, now I know I said I didn't want to once I have to manually do things, but in this case, being able to apply a workflow based on circumstance is something that I prefer.

Felicia Pugh: 00:13:29

Versus in Honeybook, their automations only kick off if there is a specific trigger that happens.

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Like something has to happen in order for the automation to kick off.

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Whereas in Dubsado, yes, it can have a trigger, but also you can just create a workflow and apply it based on circumstance.

Felicia Pugh: 00:13:51

Okay, so for example, keeping with that application example, let's just say the application was not approved, I can have a workflow for people who are not approved and just apply that based on the circumstance.

Felicia Pugh: 00:14:06

Whereas in Honeybook, I can't do that.

Felicia Pugh: 00:14:09

I can't manually add an entire workflow to a project.

Felicia Pugh: 00:14:15

Okay, the next thing, let me see, try to group these together.

Felicia Pugh: 00:14:20

Okay, the next thing that I prefer in Dubsado over Honeybook is the fact that I can automatically customize the project titles.

Felicia Pugh: 00:14:30

And these seem like small things, but when you add them all up, it's like, wow, these little things add up.

Felicia Pugh: 00:14:36

So in Dubsado, whether it's a lead capture form, whether it's a proposal, you can, again, using these smart fields, you can bring in smart fields or you can just put in any typed words that you want, you can set what the project title is.

Felicia Pugh: 00:14:56

In Honeybook, you cannot do that in Honeybook, it's standard.

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Like if somebody sets an appointment or if somebody fills out a particular form, it just comes in as their first name, their last name, and project.

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And so if I have a different preference for what I want my projects to be named, I will have to manually go in and change that project.

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And for me, I do.

Felicia Pugh: 00:15:20

I would want their name.

Felicia Pugh: 00:15:21

Yes.

Felicia Pugh: 00:15:21

But I also would want to include the service that this particular person has just paid for.

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So for me, I need to be able to have this automatically done instead of having to go in manually after it's created to change the name of the project.

Felicia Pugh: 00:15:38

And when I looked at Honeybook's options in terms of their automations and their triggers and all of their things, the conditional actions, they're good.

Felicia Pugh: 00:15:49

But I still have more options in Dubsado when it comes to their workflows.

Felicia Pugh: 00:15:54

Like Dubsado still has better automation and workflow capabilities based on what your client experience workflow looks like, that will determine which of these platforms will be able to host your workflow.

Felicia Pugh: 00:16:12

So again, this goes back to the point of knowing what your process is before you hop into a CRM.

Felicia Pugh: 00:16:19

And I will talk about in the next episode, I'm going to talk about how to choose the right CRM for your business.

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But just know you need to have your process.

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And I say this all the time, you need to have your process mapped out before you try to translate that into a CRM.

Felicia Pugh: 00:16:33

Okay, let's continue on.

Felicia Pugh: 00:16:35

So another thing that I liked in Dubsado that was not available in Honeybook was the option on the scheduler to be able to limit the number of times a scheduler is used.

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So let's just say, using myself as an example, if I Have this Black Friday offer, which is the workflow work session.

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And let's just say I'm only offering five sessions, right?

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I can set that up in the settings of the scheduler to say that this scheduler can only be used five times.

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So person number six comes along, it will show no availability.

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Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:17:12

The other thing that I liked about Dubsado over Honeybook was the fact that I can also limit the number of appointments that can be booked on a scheduler per day.

Felicia Pugh: 00:17:23

So let's just say I have availability on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12 to 5pm Technically, that's five hours.

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I could have five sessions, right?

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But let's just say just due to my capacity, I only want to have two appointments per day.

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I can set that up in Dubsado to say only two appointments per day for this type of appointment.

Felicia Pugh: 00:17:48

I cannot do that in Honeybook.

Felicia Pugh: 00:17:51

Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:17:52

The other thing that I liked about Dubsado over Honeybook in terms of the scheduler, is that with Dubsado, I can customize.

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I can edit the confirmation email for the scheduler.

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Like when somebody books an appointment, I can customize the email that goes out to them that confirms their appointment in Honeybook.

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You cannot customize that email as of yet.

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It's no way to access it.

Felicia Pugh: 00:18:23

And I don't like that.

Felicia Pugh: 00:18:24

I cannot edit that because what I would do is I would use the confirmation email, yes, to confirm the appointment, but I will also add in next steps, right?

Felicia Pugh: 00:18:35

So I cannot edit it in Honeybook.

Felicia Pugh: 00:18:38

And so now the client, they're getting the receipt for their payment, they're getting a confirmation email for their appointment, and now they're getting an email from me about next steps.

Felicia Pugh: 00:18:50

Whereas if I could customize the email, I would knock that down from three emails that they would be getting to two emails, just decluttering the process a little bit.

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:00

And that's just a personal preference for me.

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:03

For me, that's.

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:04

That's about making the process more efficient and streamlined for both myself and the client.

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:09

And then the other thing, this is more so related to payments, is that in Dubsado, you can allow someone who's purchasing from you, you can allow them to use a discount code or a coupon code, all right?

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:26

So you can set up a code for whatever, 20% off, $20 off, whatever it is, if you're running like a Black Friday offer, and they can put the code in and the discount would be applied, and boom, that's it.

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:39

In Honeybook, they don't have the option for the client to Add a discount code.

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:45

So if there was any type of discount that was going to happen, you would have to manually do it, which is not my preference.

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:55

Okay.

Felicia Pugh: 00:19:57

Now, I did not dig into every single feature and go into every single setting in honeybook.

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:03

This, again, is just based on the process that I was trying to set up this particular workflow for this Black Friday offer.

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:11

But, you know, I will continue to dig into their features.

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:16

I do see that they have options for you to sell digital products.

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And again, like I said, I do like their smart file options and just their payment processing experience, I do like.

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:31

But based on just how I work and my desire to have things more customized and more automated, I decided to actually not use HoneyBook for this black Friday offer and to stick with Dubsado.

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:47

Now, will I use honeybook in the future?

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:48

I don't know.

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:49

We'll see.

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:50

I'll kind of be monitoring both.

Felicia Pugh: 00:20:52

xt, this next year, honestly,: 2025

Felicia Pugh: 00:21:11

And when a particular software that you're using is kind of slow to add features or seems like it's not listening to what the needs of the customer is, that can become frustrating.

Felicia Pugh: 00:21:26

And so it will be really interesting just to see how both of these companies just have their, their ear to the needs of their clients and how they actually implement and add new features that are needed.

Felicia Pugh: 00:21:41

And I'll be watching.

Felicia Pugh: 00:21:42

You know, I'll be watching.

Felicia Pugh: 00:21:43

I personally will be using Dubsado for now.

Felicia Pugh: 00:21:45

I may use HoneyBook for someone off things, but just because I prefer Dubsado does not mean it's the best option for you.

Felicia Pugh: 00:21:52

So again, based on what your needs are as a business owner, based on what your client journey looks like, your workflow that will determine which of these platforms works best for you.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:05

I actually am an affiliate for both, right.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:07

Because sometimes HoneyBook makes sense for people, sometimes Dubsado makes sense for people.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:12

They both have great features.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:14

I honestly wish I could just take some of the features from each of them and merge them together to have the perfect CRM for me.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:21

But until then, I have to go with just what makes the most sense or the one that has more of the capabilities that I prefer and I desire.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:33

But I am an affiliate for both.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:34

And so if you want to try out either of them, you can click the link in the show notes and there is a discount for both of them.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:42

There and if you have any questions about either of the platforms, feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:48

I would love to chat with you again in the next episode.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:50

I'm talking about how to choose the right CRM for your business.

Felicia Pugh: 00:22:54

Okay, so I just wanted to give you guys just a behind the scenes into what it looked like for me as a Dubsado user to dig into Honeybook a little bit.

Felicia Pugh: 00:23:04

And there you have it.

Felicia Pugh: 00:23:05

Thank you for listening and I will see you in the next episode.

Felicia Pugh: 00:23:09

Thank you for listening to the Mom CEO Suite podcast.

Felicia Pugh: 00:23:12

If you enjoyed this episode, can you do us a favor?

Felicia Pugh: 00:23:15

Leave a review on itunes and share with other moms in business like you.

Felicia Pugh: 00:23:20

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