As your business grows, you will likely want to streamline certain things. Keeping track of everything you need to do as a creative business owner can be tough! As you grow and take on more, things can slip through the cracks. Or it’s just not worth it for you to reinvent the wheel every time something needs to be done.

That’s where systems come in. Systems can be any sort of automation or flow that you put together in your business, but today I’ll tell you about 5 external systems that my team uses to operate a multi-six-figure stationery business.

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Streamline Workflow with Dubsado

Dubsado is a client management system or CMS (or CRM as some people say). It helps keep track of all client and project information. Dubsado handles all of our invitation proofs, invoices, contracts, and forms to gather information from our clients. I have handled over 450 jobs since starting with Dubsado and there’s no way I could have used email or Google forms for all of those projects without losing some important information or making a ton of mistakes along the way.

I do a lot of educating on how to use Dubsado as a stationery designer, but here’s our free Dubsado setup class that you can access to see it in action!

You can also use our link (or code DESIGNBYLANEY) for 30% off your first month or year with Dubsado!

Trello for Designers

Trello is another great system that I use, especially now that I have a team. I tried all of the task management softwares (Monday, Asana, Notion, etc.) and found that I liked Trello the best for the way my brain works. It’s a great system for brain dumping or brainstorming, and then actually being able to turn those dumps into manageable action items.

The thing I liked best about Trello is that it didn’t require working on a calendar or with due dates. The other systems really wanted me to put a due date on every single item. I needed a place to keep track of calendar items, yes, but also idea lists, research, etc. and Trello provided that! 

Since hiring my 2 teammates, we have created systems in Trello with labels, tags, and cards that end up saving us so much time and we always know where to find the things we need.

We also have a class in Stationery School on how our team uses Trello for client and team project management! Join Stationery School and get that class plus over 100 others – it’s like Netflix for creative business owners!

Kajabi

Kajabi is a bit more advanced, but it handles so much in our business! We use Kajabi for email marketing, course hosting, digital downloads, running our memberships, and more. You can use Kajabi for even more like coaching, podcasting, and even your entire website. 

My favorite thing about using Kajabi as an online educator is that everything is connected within Kajabi. If a client signs up for a freebie, we can then use that information to target them for products they might be interested in. All of their purchase history is in Kajabi, and they can access classes and downloads all from one portal. While you can get other systems for email marketing, course hosting, etc. – you’d have to do a lot of back-end work to integrate them seamlessly! 

Here’s a video on how we sell digital downloads in Kajabi! 

ManyChat

The next 2 systems are marketing related. We use a system called ManyChat to automate all of our Instagram comments and DMs. It’s kind of like having your own company chatbot…but on Instagram! If you’ve ever seen those Instagram posts saying “Comment X and I’ll send you a link to Y” – that’s likely ManyChat doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

There are so many creative ways to use ManyChat, but just know it can be as simple as sending a link in response to a comment, or as complex as a “Getting Started” quiz with 10+ flow charts branching off depending on the user’s answers. 

Here’s a video to see more how it works, and you can get 30% off for 3 months if you use our link to check it out! 

Streamline Marketing with Repurpose.io

Lastly, Repurpose.io is another system that we use at Design by Laney to automate our social media posting. After every time I post a Reel on Instagram, Repurpose automatically:

• Shares that Reel to TikTok
• Shares that Reel to Pinterest
• Shares that Reel to Facebook
• Saves that Reel in a folder on Google Drive with no watermark (so I always have my past Reels ready to go!)

Manually, I can also go in and select for that Reel to share to YouTube Shorts or Twitter if I want!

Repurpose is basically an automatic reposting platform, that allows me to have a presence on a lot of different platforms while really only focusing on one. One day I logged into TikTok to find I had A MILLION VIEWS on a TikTok that I hadn’t even realized posted – it came from Instagram automatically via Repurpose.io. Imagine if I hadn’t had that turned on?

I hope you’ll try out some of these systems to help streamline your business and let me know what you think! Each one earns its cost back (and more) every single month by simplifying my life, and making me more money in the business. I’d love to chat about how they can help your business too! 

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