Q & Cake #6

In today’s Q & Cake (our own fancy version of Q & A) Elisabeth and Cami discuss several questions from listeners about sending proposals, mailing suites, the proofing process, advertising, and drop shipping vs. inventory when it comes to products. These are questions from fellow artists, calligraphers, designers, stationers, etc. that will hopefully help you in your own biz journey as a creativepreneur!

Can you talk a little bit about the proposal process in Dubsado? Do you do some back and forth with the client before presenting their proposal to them? Especially if you have it set up to go directly to the contract and invoice after they submit the proposal? I’m trying to set up a lot of processes to make the client on-boarding experience as seamless as possible, but logistically feel like it isn’t as simple as I am wanting it to be because every client is so different. – @ivyandlinendesign

What is the process when offering assembly/mailing for suites? Do you send a final “sample” to the couple before sending them all out so they can see? Or do you assemble/stuff/do envelopes and then have them send out the final product? – @sehuntdesign

When you do custom work such as hand lettered invitations, how do you show your examples/progress/concepts to the client? You can’t see them in person, so does a digital picture really show your hand lettered work that well? I guess I am asking how do you know they will be satisfied with the custom hand lettered work once you actually mail the stuff out to them? – @fmramz

How do I get my name out there? I started in November and I feel that my custom wedding invites are very impressive but I have no clients. I just have no clue how I get my name out there more and get bookings. Right now everything I’m doing is for advertising & for growing my business. I’m putting a lot of money in & having no money back which is frustrating! I want my business to take off so badly, SOS. – @juliakcalligraphy

I would love to hear about drop shipping products versus shipping them yourself. I ask because I often think about introducing products, but I don’t want to deal with managing inventory or shipping. However, I imagine that the profit margins are higher if you ship yourself. It looks like you do a little bit of both, Cami, and I’d love to hear about the backend rationale behind this approach. (I’m not sure how you handle shipping, Elisabeth, but I’d love to hear from you, too, if you have insight to share!). – @santafearttours