Kitchen and Bath Designers: How to Automate & Delegate your Discovery/Proposal Process

I’ve been doing a lot of discovery calls and proposals lately, and I’m reminded how happy I am that I’ve gotten the process so dialed in now that it takes practically no time for me at all.  It's so quick and easy now it’s hard to believe that this used to be a cumbersome and time-consuming part of my work.  

Here’s the thing - when you’re a self-employed kitchen and bath or interior designer, you spend a lot of time corresponding with prospective clients, looking at new jobs and writing proposals.  It’s fun to look at new work and talk to prospective clients but all the tedious scheduling and proposal writing, etc. that goes along with it?  Not so much.  It doesn’t feel like it’s taking that much time, but when you look at your week, a good chunk of it is probably going to getting new work and writing proposals, instead of working on your current (billable) projects.   The time you spend getting new work is technically “not paid,” although it is obviously very important!  All that said, if you can automate and delegate as much of that work as possible so you can spend more time in your zone of genius, you’re definitely going to want to do that, right? 

A couple of years ago I decided to make it a priority to streamline my process of getting new work, and I’m happy to report that It’s been incredibly successful.  Now, when it comes to getting new jobs, the majority of my time is spent talking with potential clients, and all of the other work associated with that is off my plate.  

Let me tell you exactly how I did it so you can streamline this important (but non-billable) part of your workflow as well!

Add a client-intake form to your website

First, I automated the way that potential clients contact me by creating an intake form on my website.  This was an easy add to my contact page on my website, and now, instead of having clients come to me here, there and everywhere through email, calls, texts, etc. they all come through one portal.  That portal catches all of their important information in one place, so it’s all organized.  The intake form emails me a neat and tidy summary of all their important information so nothing gets lost.

As an added bonus, the questions on the intake form can be crafted to automatically weed out clients who are not a good fit for you, with questions about the services needed, potential budget, etc.  

Set up an online scheduler

Next, I automated the discovery call scheduling process adding a scheduling link to my website as well.  After clients fill out an intake form, they are automatically given an Acuity scheduling link so they can schedule a free discovery call with me.  There are a lot of inexpensive options for this (Calendly is another) and also a quick easy fix for my web designer to add to my web page.  I went into Acuity and set up certain times when people can schedule discovery calls with me so I don’t need to worry about them popping up all hours of the day or night.   I get a handy email notification when someone is scheduled with me, and it appears on my calendar.  Personally, I love the automation of this, and it cuts out all of the tedious back and forth of scheduling and makes it automatic, requiring zero time on my end.  I love it!

Zoom your Discovery Calls

Next, I always do discovery calls on zoom now.  This is something we started doing during the pandemic, and it’s so convenient that for me, there’s no going back to in-home visits for potential projects.  Zoom allows me to meet easily with a number of potential clients in any one day without a lot of driving back and forth.  I understand that this may not work for everyone, but for us it's been working quite well, and we’re able to see enough of the client and the project this way that we can tell if it’s a good fit and worth sending over a proposal. 

Create a Discovery call intake form.

As you have heard, I’ve already gathered a lot of information from the client on my website intake form.  I also have a printed discovery call sheet that I fill out while I’m on the zoom call with my client to make sure I have all of the details  about the project in one place and I don’t forget anything.  

Get your Proposal Signed and Deposit Paid Online

When the Discovery call is done, our office sends a proposal over through DocuSign so the client can sign online, and we also send over a Quickbooks invoice so they can pay a deposit online.  This is all very automated and convenient for the clients and they can take care of business with a tap of the finger on their smartphone.  It means we get our proposals signed and deposits paid quickly.  There are a lot of online services and ways to go about sending proposals for signatures online as well as obtaining payments online, and I highly recommend this.  Docusign and Quickbooks are just two of many, many options out there that work great for Kitchen and Bath and Interior Design Businesses.

Delegate writing the Proposal

While this is all very automated and easy from the clients perspective, it still takes time to write the proposal, load it into Docusign and send, as well as write up the invoice and send online.  Luckly, this can all be easily delegated to a design assistant or virtual assistant.  

I’ve been having my virtual assistant take care of this for the past couple of years, and it is a super easy thing to delegate!  I just had her create a quick excel form that has all of the potential information that needs to go into the proposal (easily created by looking at past proposals).  After my discovery call, I add in the info and click the boxes next to the info that she needs to include in the proposal, and viola!  In about 5 minutes, my virtual assistant has everything she needs to write a proposal and invoice and send to the clients.  It’s off my plate and ready to go!  

Depending on how much variation you have in your proposals, an easy way to create a form like this is to separate out each section of your proposal and add check boxes next to them.  Add in every possible line that could go there.  Then, when it’s time to delegate this task, simply check off the boxes next to the sections you want to include in the proposal.  For me, my proposals include a description of services, so I have a box in my excel sheet where I quickly type this in.  I also list out the services to be provided, so this is where I have listed out every possible service that I provide so I can choose between them and click the boxes to include for my virtual assistant.  It takes mere seconds, and she then has everything she needs to write the proposal.  You can add boxes for fee estimates, billing rates, etc.  

Create an Email Template

Next, write a standard template email to send with the proposal.  This is easily done and takes the guesswork out of sending the proposal out.  Your assistant can copy and paste this to send everything out.

Important - check before sending!

Yes, although I have my virtual assistant write the proposals and deposit invoices, I have her notify me when they're ready to go and then I do a quick check before sending.  Just a good idea just in case there’s anything that doesn’t look right!  

It takes a little bit of focus and time to automate and delegate this process, but it’s time well spent.  I can’t tell you what a relief it is to be able to focus on my work and spend my discovery call time just on the call - and not have to worry about the rest!  It gives me a little spark of joy to spend about 5 minutes filling out the information on the client info sheet and sending it over to my virtual assistant, knowing that she’ll take the baton and take care of the rest.  

It used to feel like I was always behind in sending out my proposals, and it was stressful to have a backlog.  But that’s no longer an issue.  Not only do I get to focus on my work, but those proposals are getting sent out quickly and easily.  It’s such a win!

I’m attaching a copy of my Prospect info sheet (the sheet I fill out by hand when I’m on my discovery calls) as well as my client information sheet that I give to my virtual assistant so she can write my proposals.  Obviously everyone’s proposals are different, so take this with a grain of salt and adapt it to your individual needs.  

Enjoy the ease of having this important process automated and minimized so you can focus on your current workload!  

Click here to download your FREE Prospect Intake Form and Client Info Sheet

Links to the services I use: 

(note, I’m not getting a kick-back - just love them!)

Virtual Assistant

https://wiseadviseteam.com/

Google Workspace

https://workspace.google.com/

Intuit Quickbooks

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/

Docusign

https://www.docusign.com/

Acuity Scheduling

https://acuityscheduling.com/