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Episode 204 - How to Create a Discovery Call Process
1k Plays1 year ago
Today we are chatting through our process for discovery calls, what we do before the call to prepare, what sorts of questions we ask during the call and how we follow up with people after the call. We even cover some of the tools that we use to make the process as seamless as possible.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check 'em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/discovery-call-process-btb-204. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Email Strategy: Placement of Budget Info
00:00:00
Speaker
But essentially, if you were hoping to get somebody on a call and worry about qualifying them in terms of budget and things like that later, then typically I would include that sort of information towards the bottom of the email and make the primary focus of the email actually scheduling the call. If, for instance, you're just buried in inquiries and you have too many, then I would move that stuff up in the email so that you're sure that people look at that information before they go on and schedule a call.
Introduction to Brands That Book Show
00:00:27
Speaker
You're listening to the Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies for building engaging brands, crafting high converting websites, and creating reliable lead generation systems for their businesses. I'm your host, Davy Jones, co-founder of two agencies, a brand and website design agency, Davy & Krista, and the digital advertising agency, Till Agency. And I ask questions so you can find answers.
Discovery Call Process Overview
00:00:55
Speaker
Today we are chatting through our process for discovery calls, what we do before the call to prepare, what sorts of questions we ask during the call, and how we follow up with people after the call. We even cover some of the tools that we use to make the process as seamless as possible.
00:01:11
Speaker
And I mentioned in the episode, but I highly recommend reading our blog post on how to follow up with people for more details on how to do that part effectively. That post even includes some sample email templates that you can make your own. As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at davianchrista.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find this podcast.
Sales Skills and Training Insight
00:01:37
Speaker
Now, onto the episode.
00:01:39
Speaker
Today we're talking about a highly requested topic. And we've been meaning to record an episode on this for a while, but that's a discovery call process. A few caveats I want to make at the beginning is like, I don't particularly see myself as a salesperson. You know, I think there are people out there that are true sales people, you know, like they're really good at sales. I will say, however, that I've spent some time reading books on sales, listening to podcasts on sales, trying to devour some sales resources, because I think selling is just something that everybody ought to learn to do.
00:02:08
Speaker
You know, like I think it's probably one of the more valuable skills that you can have as a business person. And there are some great resources out there for learning how to sell. I mean, heck, earlier this summer, we had guide culture on the podcast, right? And that's what they focus on as a company is providing sales training for I think specifically women entrepreneurs. But I think, you know, regardless, that training as an entrepreneur would be good to go through.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yes, definitely. Yeah. But, you know, we've been doing sales calls for years and years and years now. So we've kind of refined our process and we have, I think, a pretty simple yet effective process for, you know, what we view as like our discovery call process. And so that's what we're going to go over today.
Episode Structure: Call Preparation and Follow-Up
00:02:47
Speaker
And really, we've broken down this episode in sort of three parts. We're going to talk about what we do before the call to prep for the call, you know, what happens during the call, you know, some of the questions that we're asking and kind of what the flow of the conversation looks like. And then we're going to talk about what we do after the call. Right.
00:03:02
Speaker
Awesome. So where should we start? Do you want to talk about what we're hoping to achieve with calls? I think that's a really good place to start. So we're trying to achieve a few things with a discovery call. You know, like I think in an ideal world, if everything could just be handled through email, you know, that would be great, right? I don't know of anybody who loves meetings, right?
00:03:20
Speaker
Having a discovery call is a really important part of the process, especially when you're purchasing something that's going to be thousands of dollars, right? Like you need to talk to a real person. I understand that, you know, it's a way to build trust and understand, you know, yeah, that person is going to deliver what they say they're going to deliver and understand what it is that that person is going to deliver. So what we're looking to achieve really is, you know, one that we're working with the right people, you know, there are definitely types of websites that, you know, maybe we wouldn't be the best fit for.
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think one thing that we often ask people is a platform question. So like, what platform are they using now? And are they open to using one of the platforms that we build on? Because let's say, for example, they really love Wix and they want to stay on Wix, then we'll know automatically that we're not the best fit for them because we don't build on that platform.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And there's certain industries that we just wouldn't go into, you know, so we want to make sure that we're working with the right people. And, you know, essentially what that means is that people that we can serve really well, you know, we have a process designed for them that we know is going to work for them. So that's the first thing that we're trying to do. And along those same lines, we're trying to qualify the person as well. Right. I think anytime somebody gets on a call with us and they're not familiar with any of our work, then maybe a little bit of a red flag. Yeah.
00:04:34
Speaker
And that doesn't mean, you know, what I don't want to come across as saying is like, oh, well, people should know who we are. You know, that's not what I'm suggesting. I do think that anytime you're going to have somebody design a brand or have somebody design a website, you know, at least having looked through their portfolio and feeling like, yeah, you really know what kind of work we produce. Yeah. And you're going to be happy with that.
00:04:56
Speaker
Right. Yeah. It's definitely a red flag when I'm talking to someone and they start asking me about sending them examples of my portfolio because typically we just assume that by the time they've booked a call with us, they looked through our work and that they like it. Otherwise we may not be able to make them happy. Like maybe our aesthetic is not what they need.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's not exactly what they're looking for. And we do send over stuff for people to look through in advance, like in the email that we send them. So it's not even just a matter of like all the stuff that's readily available on our website that you can look through or Instagram and so on and so forth. Hopefully that makes sense. You know, I mean, to a certain extent as well, it's like, you know, qualifying that somebody has the budget to work with us as well. We do try to do that before we ever jump on a call. And we'll talk about that in a minute and how we do that.
00:05:41
Speaker
But it's also to understand exactly what somebody is looking for. I think this goes back to the qualification process a little bit. We want to understand, okay, a lot of people will come to us, they already have a website. Occasionally we work with brand new business owners who don't, but that website or that brand isn't doing what they want it to do. So understanding really why they're coming to us is important. And then for them to understand how we work and what our process is as well.
00:06:08
Speaker
And I think that this might be one of the most important aspects of a discovery call. And I think if you're running into, I think, client experience issues, I guess, as I'll call them, that this is why a discovery call becomes important. Because, you know, having an understanding of how somebody works and what the process looks like and feeling like throughout the process that those expectations are being fulfilled, right, is an incredibly important part of the client experience.
00:06:35
Speaker
And so from the very beginning, just from the very first call that you ever have with somebody, which is typically a discovery call, you can start setting the tone for the client experience. So those are just some of the things that we want to achieve and some of the reasons why we have a discovery call. Do you want to start talking about what we do before people even get on a call with us?
Automating Scheduling with Tools
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So, and I want to talk about some of the tools as well, just for those of you looking for very practical ways to create a discovery call process. One of the things that I would try to make as seamless as possible is getting people scheduled. And so having a tool like Akuity, which is what we use personally, or Calendly is another popular one.
00:07:14
Speaker
some sort of scheduler that automates the scheduling process because it's going to cut down on the email back and forth like, Hey, does Wednesday to work for you? No, but Wednesday to 30 does. Oh no, I have a call that time, right? And that creates unnecessary friction, right? Especially because it really does make a difference. Like if you've reached out to a bunch of people to, you know, hopefully get quotes, you know, or talk to people about,
00:07:36
Speaker
completing the service for you, how quickly somebody responds and how seamless it is to move forward really makes a difference. Again, in the overall client experience, but also whether somebody decides to work with you or not. We really do try to make that process as seamless as possible. And I think something like acuity and calendly, the great thing about them is that they can connect with your calendar, your digital calendar, not if you do a paper calendar.
00:07:59
Speaker
And let's say you're on vacation one week, it's automatically going to mark that as unavailable on your calendar if you want it to be unavailable. And then no one can schedule calls that week. And you can set it to only allow calls for certain lengths of time at certain days. Like Davey said, it makes the process very seamless and easy for them to find a time that works for everyone without a lot of back and forth.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah. And so basically when somebody reaches out, when somebody inquires, we've had a different workflow in different seasons here. But I would say, you know, if the goal is to get somebody on a call, you want to make the email pretty short and sweet and to the point. All right. But there are definitely things that you want to include in that email. First of all, one thing that we include is a link to our collection guide.
00:08:45
Speaker
That is a one page site that goes over all of the different things that we offer. It talks about our process. It shows examples of brands that we've designed recently. It shows examples of websites that we've designed recently and then the prices for each, just so that everybody can make sure that we're on the same page as far as budgets go and starting places for websites before they even schedule a call with us.
00:09:09
Speaker
And I think there's sort of an art in that email as well. So that email it's evolved a little bit over the years, but essentially like if you were hoping to get somebody on a call and worry about qualifying them in terms of budget and things like that later, then typically I would include that sort of information towards the bottom of the email and make the primary focus of the email actually scheduling the call. You know, if for instance, you're just like buried in inquiries and you have too many,
00:09:34
Speaker
then I would move that stuff up in the email so that you're sure that people look at that information before they go on and schedule a call. Either way, I wouldn't put a lot of unnecessary information in that email. You know, again, I would look at it as the more information you put in that email, the more you're trying to qualify that person before you get on a call with them.
00:09:56
Speaker
and you don't want to get on a call with somebody. Say your work starts at $5,000, you don't want to get on a call with somebody who has a budget of $500. But somebody with a budget of maybe $3,500 or $4,000, yes, technically it's under what your prices start at. But typically when it's closer like that, there might be room to sell that person on your collections, even though they're a little bit more expensive or a little bit more than that person wanted to spend because you're typically able to get people to see the value
00:10:25
Speaker
in what it is that you provide, right? But I treat it sort of like a contact form. You don't want to include so much information that it's burdensome for somebody to fill it out, especially if the goal is to get them on the phone, all right? And are you saying that you should ask these in the actual email or I believe we put them in our acuity scheduler, correct?
Effective Use of Scheduler Forms
00:10:45
Speaker
Yeah, so we do ask that sort of the next step here, you know, our email is relatively short and sweet, you know, hey, here's some information schedule call. It's more wordsmith than that, right? But that's basically the gist of it, right? And then when somebody goes to the acuity scheduler and picks a time, we do ask them a few questions. Now, this helps us prepare for the call. Basically, the questions we ask are what are they interested in?
00:11:08
Speaker
We asked for their current website. We asked for their budget. And again, this is important because if the budget is way below what it is that we offer, we will send an email to that person in advance and just explain that just so that they don't feel like we wasted their time. And of course, our time's valuable too. So we want to make sure that we're not jumping on unnecessary meetings throughout the day. And right now, me and you take those discovery calls. So when somebody schedules a call, either me or you are taking it. And right now, in this season, you've been taking those calls lately.
00:11:37
Speaker
Well, this also allows us to give other options. So maybe they say that they want a logo and their budget is 500, we could send them a link to our semi-custom brand options, which are more within their budget than a custom logo. Yeah, exactly. And we try to make sure that that email is as gentle as possible. We don't want, again, what we don't want people to feel like is, oh, well, this isn't worth our time because you're not going to spend enough money or something like that.
00:12:02
Speaker
But anyways, these questions allow us to prepare for the call. One of the questions in particular that we ask is what they feel like is their biggest concern. So what's your biggest concern about this project? And reading through those are really interesting, but it allows us to prepare for the call so that we can speak to that when we actually get on the call. Now, here's the deal. I've written a blog post on how to follow up with people.
00:12:25
Speaker
It's actually, I think, one of our most popular blog posts. It ranks pretty well in Google, so that helps. But if you haven't read that blog post and you struggle to get people to respond to your emails, highly recommend it. And this is something that I've provided our various team members training on and so on and so forth. But basically, whenever you're trying to get somebody to take an action or you're trying to continue the conversation, one simple thing that you can do is
00:12:50
Speaker
you know, to ask people like something like instead of, hey, schedule a call if you're interested, you know, ask them, do you have time to chat, you know, or do you have time to chat more about this? You know, and when you actually ask a question, it begs a response, even if that response is no, right? Right. And so even if that response is no, you're more likely to get a response and somebody explain why it's no. All right. And that can be valuable information for you instead of somebody just ghosting you.
00:13:15
Speaker
Right. So I'd say in general, it's important to follow up with people. But if you want to increase the response rate of your emails, asking
Boosting Email Response Rates
00:13:23
Speaker
one question, keeping things simple, I think will increase the response rate of your emails. So something to keep in mind there. All right. Should we dive into what happens during the call?
00:13:33
Speaker
Yes.
Building Rapport During Calls
00:13:34
Speaker
Let's jump in to let's jump into during the call. So we've taken some time to review their website or their brand. If they're interested in brand design, understand what their biggest concern is. We jot down some notes. So when we get on the call with somebody and the way that we do it is via phone call. We just find that's easier than trying to set up a Google hangout or something like that. I think there is value face to face, but phone calls seem to be pretty easy for everybody.
00:13:58
Speaker
And I don't have to get all the way dressed every day. So when we jump on a call with somebody, you know, this might sound silly, but we always start with just like, Hey, how are you? Is this still a good time to chat? You know? And again, just the impact that a question like, Hey, how are you? You know, is it a good day?
00:14:14
Speaker
can have on the overall, you know, sort of sales process is pretty interesting. So if you want to look up some more information about that. And then we always ask how they hear about us. You know, sometimes we know because they included that information in the intake form, you know, because we also ask how they heard about us on the equity form. But we're always going to ask that question again, or we're going to at least speak to it. And here's at least one reason why we do that.
00:14:39
Speaker
I mean, beyond just kind of, it's nice to know where our inquiries are coming from and what our marketing channels are working. We ask because it helps to build trust if so-and-so worked for us. Oh, you know, I hear you heard about us from Colleen and we just launched Colleen's brand design. Yeah, we had a great time working with her. And so it starts building trust, you know, and it makes that connection more explicit. So we almost always ask that question.
00:15:05
Speaker
Then we ask people to tell us a little bit about their business and so we might even get a little bit more specific with this and so maybe a little bit about the history of their business and then also maybe their goals for their business because it can be helpful to know maybe if somebody is a stationary designer and they currently have stationary where people it's all custom but they want to add a shop it can be helpful to know a little bit more about how they see their business growing.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. And a lot of people, they come to us for a new brand or new website because they're pivoting in some way. They're trying to reach a new clientele, but we want to know that information. And so that kind of ties into this next question. And sometimes we kind of ask a different question just by combining these two aspects, which is, what are you hoping to get out of the project?
00:15:52
Speaker
common answers we get are like more leads, more sales, you know, just generally higher conversion. One of the most popular ones we get though is like brand work congruency. So basically like somebody is trying to reach a new clientele. They're trying to level up a little bit. Maybe they're a wedding photographer. They want to shoot really high end weddings, you know, but all they have on their website, you know, is
00:16:14
Speaker
a brand that they started out with and kind of old work. And so it doesn't match the level of client that they know they can now reach with the work that they're doing. So we want to understand those things because we want to understand what's going to be a win for this client.
00:16:32
Speaker
I think it's also helpful for us to know what their pain point is for their current website. Again, a lot of people come to us saying that their current website is very outdated and really hard to update. And so if we know that, then we can talk about how we chose the platforms that we build on because they're so easy for our clients to complete an update without us in the future. So it's helpful to know about their pain points too.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. I think that this kind of ties in well to this next point, which is like we trying to tailor our responses to address what they need. And even to try and bring up things that are important to most people, even if they maybe can't verbalize it or didn't verbalize it. So SEO is a really big one for local businesses. That's something that we specialize in, that we understand, that we take seriously, right? And so be able to speak to that pain point
00:17:23
Speaker
and not create a pain point if it's not already a pain point, but really sort of help businesses understand why it is important for them and how we can help with that thing.
Tailoring Responses to Client Needs
00:17:35
Speaker
And so being able to speak to people's specific issues, it helps them feel understood. And I think when somebody feels understood, they start seeing more readily the value in what you provide.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah. And then from there, you know, I'd say that the conversation shifts, you know, we'll have heard a lot from them towards the beginning of the call. And then it shifts a little bit and it's us explaining, you know, not just everything we offer, but what we feel like is going to be the best fit for them.
00:18:04
Speaker
So if somebody says they only need a website and they don't need a brand, then we don't talk about brands at all. But if somebody is on the fence about a brand or they think they might want a brand, we'll start by walking them through the brand process and all of the steps of that and what the final deliverables would be for them. And then we shift into talking about a website and we might tailor this to either a custom website or a semi-custom website based on what they have expressed is important to them.
00:18:33
Speaker
And I would say it's not just letting them dictate what they need, you know, because as professionals, we're able to speak to what we think is the right combination of things. You know, I'd say a lot of times as people deciding, well, do I need a semi custom website or a fully custom website, you know, helping them navigate that decision a little bit, right? You know, talking about, okay, here's how, you know, if it were us and, you know, again, outside looking in on your business, here are the different things that we would tackle.
00:18:58
Speaker
So, you know, not just sharing with people your services as if it's a menu for McDonald's, you know, but specifically saying like, Hey, I really think that this would be the best fit for you. And why, you know, what do you think about that? Like, what concerns do you have and being able to overcome those objections and answer those questions, right?
00:19:17
Speaker
And then, of course, we make plenty of time for questions. And oftentimes, if somebody doesn't have questions, I'll usually ask them a few questions because I think everybody has questions, right? I think everybody eventually has questions. So once you start asking questions to somebody, something happens where all of a sudden they'll start coming up with questions as well. And that might be a question like, hey, how important is SEO to you?
00:19:40
Speaker
And then all of a sudden they wanna know a little bit more about that and maybe something related to that. Oh yeah, I meant to add, we run Facebook ads and so we need a website that we can install the Facebook pixel and trust that it will convert or so on and so forth.
00:19:56
Speaker
And then, you know, asking them when they'll make a decision. You know, hey, you know, we try not to rush people. We always tell people that even if they don't make a decision for months, we'd be happy to work with them. But we also want to create a sense of urgency as well. We're not big believers in creating false senses of urgency, but we do try to be honest with people about like our bandwidth. So typically we're booking, you know, I would say three to four weeks out, minimally, right?
00:20:21
Speaker
and explaining to people, especially as we get into the winter, that that timeline usually increases. So that people understand like, hey, you know, if you come back to us in two weeks and say you want to move forward, just keep in mind that these timelines will then most likely be shifted, you know, two to three weeks out, right? For our custom work, we work on a first come, first serve basis.
00:20:42
Speaker
And if you know that your prices incrementally adjust, would you recommend saying something like, we also can't guarantee these prices if you were to come back to us in six months? Yes, absolutely. Especially for people who are doing, it's not, I'd say, uncommon for somebody to schedule a call and really, hey, I'm not really going to do this for six months or so. I'm just trying to budget. And for us to tell people, especially I'd say,
00:21:07
Speaker
We typically don't raise our prices quarterly, but we're not going to guarantee the prices over probably six months. So things like that I think are important. Occasionally somebody will say, okay, well, I still don't want to start for six months, but I want to lock in that project now. So they'll submit their first payment and sign their contract, even though they're not going to start for a few months. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what should people do after the call? I have a question for the listeners right now. Okay. Who do you think has a better closing rate, me or Krista?
00:21:36
Speaker
Do you think that people are going to answer you? I don't know. It's Krista. It's probably not surprising. People are like, David, it is Krista. But Krista just started taking these calls just so I could start working on some like projects that require, you know, bulks of time. And it's been really interesting. You know, I feel like at first, you know, you were kind of asking like, okay, you know, how should I format these calls? Things like that. But then since then, it's like you get on a call. It's like you just booked people. I'm like, how?
00:22:03
Speaker
I'm going to say that I use Davey's discovery call process a little more loosely than he does. I think that I more have a conversation with people, but I do use it as a guide. Thanks. Thanks. Everybody's like, I'm not listening to any of this, anything this guy says. I do most of this. I just kind of do it in my own way, which I think is what you should do as well. Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. Everybody should tailor this so that it feels natural for them, but hopefully it gives them some ideas. Davey's probably not talking about like color palettes and looking at their Instagram and saying like, Hey, I think you should pick this template.
00:22:32
Speaker
Which is what I do. Yeah, and that's the thing. I do think that you have a big advantage because you can, like, for instance, if somebody's like, hey, you know, what do you think about my brand? I'm going to most likely be like, you know, when I follow up with you, I will send over some thoughts from Krista on your brand, right? So you can speak to things maybe in a more specific way than I can. Right. And again, going back to making people feel understood, right? I think that's just an important aspect of it.
00:23:00
Speaker
But I will say some of the smaller tactical things like sending emails, things like that, I do feel strongly about, you know, asking one question in an email, you know, this is how you frame things, so on
Importance of Prompt Follow-Up
00:23:12
Speaker
and so forth. Right. Anyways, let's talk about after the call, you know, what happens after the call. One, we send over sort of next steps immediately. So if somebody's requested something from us, maybe they want, you know, it's not uncommon, I guess, for somebody to get on a call and be like, hey, you know, they're a hotel and they want to see what other hotel websites we've done or something like that.
00:23:29
Speaker
But we want to send over those things immediately while the call is fresh in their mind. All right. So we don't wait until the next day or anything like that. Certainly if a contract and an invoices is asked for like those things get sent over by the end of the day. Right. And that's something that I feel pretty strongly about just because again, you know, like that's when people are interested in and that's when they're in the mindset of doing this.
00:23:50
Speaker
I think it also demonstrates that you're good at doing what you say that you can do, especially if maybe somebody has worked with a previous person in your industry before and had a really bad experience.
00:24:01
Speaker
We work with a lot of people who work with their spouse, or even if they don't work with their spouse, they make financial decisions with their spouse. And so it's not uncommon for them to say, Hey, you know, I pretty sure I want to move forward. Can you send over the contract invoice, but I'm going to talk with my spouse about it. And that way, you know, that night when it's fresh on their mind, they have that in front of them instead of again, waiting till the next day. And then who knows when they can have that conversation, right?
00:24:24
Speaker
So you wanna make sure that you send over any info that was promised pretty promptly. I'd say certainly by the end of the day. From there, we follow up. And again, that's another thing that I'm a big believer in is following up. I think that a lot of people think, okay, well, somebody doesn't book right away or somebody doesn't respond to my initial email, then they're just not excited about working with me and I don't wanna work with them. And that's just not true. I think people are busy. And so we follow up, especially with like initial inquiries, right? We follow people on a probably two to three day
00:24:54
Speaker
cadence and the amount of people who are like, oh yeah, thank you. You know, I sent in my inquiry and then I went on vacation, you know, I'll schedule a call now. It's a lot, you know, I don't, I wouldn't say necessarily it's the majority of people, but it's a lot of people. Whereas if you're not following up with people, you're probably leaving money on the table. You know,
00:25:11
Speaker
So following up with people, I'd say every two to three days does vary a little bit on the call. You know, especially if we feel like maybe it's not the best fit, you know, we're not going to like maybe follow up quite as much. But if we don't feel like it's a good fit, then we typically tell people that, you know, upfront, right? You know, like we're going to just straight up say, hey, you know, we don't think we're a good fit.
00:25:30
Speaker
But if we send over a contract invoice, we'll probably send an email the next day if we don't have that back saying, hey, do you have any questions about this? We don't want to be pushy, but we want to make sure that if people do have questions and maybe something came up in that conversation with a spouse or a business partner or whatever, that we're giving them an opportunity to reply and say, yeah, these are the questions I have.
00:25:51
Speaker
Well, from a schedule perspective too, we also don't want to have like 10 contracts out and have everybody sign the same day and then have like a weird overlap in dates and just too many things at once.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Again, going back to urgency, once somebody requests a contract, we tell them that we can hold their start date for the next three days. And after that, they just need to let us know if they need more time to decide because we may need to adjust the start date. And if you are sending contracts out on a weekly basis, this can help you from getting in a jam where you do have 10 contracts out.
00:26:26
Speaker
You don't think that, you know, maybe you think seven of them kind of fell off the radar and all of a sudden all of them come back and now you're like double booked or you're too booked, you know, and it becomes stressful for you. And it's a nice, you know, again, a nice little way to add a sense of urgency to, you know, service-based business.
00:26:45
Speaker
That's pretty much the gist of it.
Tracking Client Communication Effectively
00:26:47
Speaker
We try to automate things, like we said, with Acuity. Another tool that we use is Dupsado. Dupsado, I think, has a scheduler built in as well, but that's how we send our contracts and invoices is using Dupsado. Yeah, any other tools that we should talk about?
00:27:00
Speaker
like you're more another one that we use is mail track that IO I think and this allows us to see if somebody has opened an email or not. And this is important because especially when you bring on a new team member and you create a new email address,
00:27:16
Speaker
whenever you create a new email address, you want to send some emails to friends and family and have them open that email and ideally respond to that email because it warms your email up. So especially with our assistance, it's important that they have mail track on because we want to see if all of a sudden they're sending emails and nobody's opening them,
00:27:33
Speaker
then we start investigating like, are things going to spam? So this gives you an idea of whether somebody has looked at an email or not. So this is not meant to be creepy. It's not meant to be soccer-ish, but it really can help you understand where somebody is at with communication. And if you responded to an inquiry and they never opened their email,
00:27:53
Speaker
then you might end up, after a few days, following up with that person via DM on Instagram if you have their Instagram handle or something like that. Now, keep in mind that sometimes people have email tracking blockers, so the email tracker won't work. It just looked like they never opened the email, even though they did. So that can happen. But that's another tool I think that's important.
00:28:15
Speaker
So I think that's it for now. If you have any questions about this process, there's probably more that we could speak on about discovery calls and how that's done, even how we prep for it. So if you have specific questions on things that we missed, feel free to send those over. And again, listen to questions that make for the best episodes. So we appreciate the people who have asked about this. Yes. Thank you for joining us, guys. See you next time.
00:28:38
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands of Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to davianchrista.com.