Client Relationship Management software (CRM) is the engine behind successful small businesses. Many startup owners hesitate to invest in this type of software because they do not feel that they have enough clients yet or enough revenue to justify the cost. Getting started with a CRM early, though, is key to getting your processes ironed out and bringing in more customers and income fast. Raising kids and building a business calls for some serious horsepower – so I’ve spent a lot of time searching for the best CRM for mompreneurs.

My personal favorites? Honeybook and Dubsado – both tools that I’ve personally tried and in which I found a lot of helpful features.

What Can a CRM Do For My Business?

Overall, the job of a CRM is to manage all communications back and forth with leads and clients. It will take in your inquiries, allow you to set up automatic workflows to send files and messages, and even process payments and offboard clients so you can gain valuable information about their experience. Many businesses choose to use multiple services to cover each of these separate tasks or do them manually, but it was a game changer when I chose to set up my business all on our one platform.

Why Should I Use Honeybook?

If you’re a business owner who needs a super user-friendly platform, Honeybook is certainly my top pick. From beginning to end of your relationship with each client, Honeybook streamlines your processes and offers a professional and clean client experience.

As an event florist, I believe it’s all in the details. For Garden in the Pines, those details begin on the website and through the inquiry process – the first time a potential customer makes contact with us. If the proposal isn’t drop-dead gorgeous, how can they trust that our floral arrangements will be? You might think, “Those two things have nothing in common!” But believe me, people subconsciously associate one with the other, and they will for your business, too.

One thing to keep in mind is how you’ll want to process payments. Some businesses choose to use a separate service like Stripe, while others prefer one software that provides all their needs. Something great about Honeybook is that it syncs with QuickBooks and keeps individual invoices separated. On the other hand, Stripe can combine payments if you have multiple paid contracts in a day, leading to a challenging bookkeeping task later when you get around to it.

What About Dubsado?

Dubsado has a public proposal feature that I LOVE for our preservation and resin work. Because of the nature of this service we provide, having a much more hands-off way to send proposals and process contracts and payments is a must-have timesaver. Dubsado allows you to embed the feature directly into your website for clients to reserve their date, select the package they want, and submit the contract, all without your input. Depending on the service that you’re providing, this may be helpful or it could cause potential over-booking schedule issues if you don’t have the correct procedure in place. Make sure you think through the entire process from beginning to end before you decide to use this feature.

In addition, I love that Dubsado has more options for email automation and workflow automation. It also lets you embed a button in emails, which is a huge plus for nurturing leads.

When it comes to providing clients with mood boards for their event florals, I typically create a design guide in Canva and send it to the client. With Dubsado, I’m able to link these PDFs easily to the client for their records, while Honeybook requires that I manually load the PDF into the smart file directly. It’s important to note that Dubsado uses Stripe as its payment processing service.

The Best CRM for Mompreneurs? Honeybook is My Choice

If I were to recommend the best CRM for mompreneurs, I’d have to go with Honeybook. The user-friendly interface and smart file feature really help in my day-to-day and make onboarding, working with, and offboarding clients a breeze. I like that I can easily send documents within the platform for clients to agree, leave comments, approve their design aesthetic, check the timeline, and so much more. It’s so important for me to have all the correct information pertaining to logistics in one place that both of us can access quickly.

Come next year, I don’t think I will renew Dubsado. I still encourage everyone to try the free trial for both platforms before committing to either platform – I think they both have their benefits for the right businesses. Honeybook is just the right one for me!

• Watch my quick video explanation of how Honeybook and Dubsado work!
• Click here to sign up for a free trial of Honeybook!
• Click here to sign up for a free trial of Dubsado!

If you’re looking for advice beyond the best CRM for mompreneurs, please check out my other mompreneur blogs or contact me directly for a one-on-one chat! You can also get on The Lysst to never miss another helpful blog, episode, or update from me.

Talk soon!

XX – Lyss