Happy Tuesday Reader

FIVE minutes.

That’s how long it took for our new client to go from proposal signed… to contract read… to invoice paid.

I took a screenshot because it perfectly sums up what I want for every founder I work with.

At 18:24, the proposal was signed.

At 18:28, the contract had been read and completed.

At 18:29, payment received.

Let's take a moment for automation. 5 minutes! Including the client reading the contract!

• No chasing.
• No back-and-forth emails.
• No “just checking you saw this.”

Just a seamless, premium client experience.

Now, normally at this stage, my onboarding email would automatically send. That's the notification you can see at 18:28, workflow action needs approval.

Everything is mapped inside Dubsado so that once payment is received, the client immediately receives their welcome email, next steps, onboarding questionnaire, and access to what they need. Seamless. Professional. Instant.

But in this case, something was slightly different.

During the proposal stage, we added an additional service. That meant the onboarding email needed to be tweaked to reflect the expanded scope.

So instead of letting it send automatically, I had intentionally placed an approval step in the workflow. For me to;

• Adjust.
• Approve.

And then it goes. That is exactly what I love about Dubsado.​

You can build a completely automated system that runs without you.

But you still hold control. You can:

• Pause a workflow

• Add an approval step

• Personalise for a unique client

• Edit before sending

• Adjust based on scope changes

It's automation with intelligence and personalisation.

Not rigid, robotic AI! Not “set it and hope for the best.”

Strategic.

This is the difference

Some founders avoid automation because they’re afraid it will feel impersonal. The real problem isn’t automation, it’s how systems are built in the first place.

When your CRM is built properly, it becomes an extension of your brand. Your client doesn’t just experience you, they experience the business. The tone. The clarity. The standards. The structure. The service they are about to receive!

Every touchpoint reassures them they’ve made the right decision.

It meant my client still received a smooth experience, but tailored precisely to what they’d invested in.

That’s what I call operational maturity.

What is manual onboarding actually costing you?

Let’s be conservative here and run the numbers properly. If your time is worth £70 per hour($89 per hour) and each new client manually takes:

• 30 minutes to prepare and customise the proposal

• 15 minutes preparing and sending the contract

• 20 minutes of email back and forth answering questions

• 10 minutes issuing and checking the invoice

• 30 minutes sending onboarding emails, links and next steps

That’s 1 hour and 45 minutes per client.

That’s £122.50 per client ($156 per client) in administrative time.

Now imagine this:

That’s 105 hours a year. Nearly three full working weeks - jeez!

Over £7,000 / $9,000 spent on repetitive manual onboarding a year

VS

£388 / $525 per year (plus 60% OFF with my discount below, this week only).

Let that land.

Reclaiming even half of those 105 hours would fundamentally change how you lead your business. It's not even just about saving time, it's also

• about capacity.
• protected revenue.
• and stepping fully into your CEO role instead of operating as your own admin assistant.

When onboarding takes 5 minutes, including the client reading the contract, that isn’t just efficiency, it’s leverage and accelerated cash flow.

Why this matters right now!

​Dubsado is celebrating its 10-year anniversary, and they're offering 40% off your first year on an annual plan, PLUS you can stack my affiliate code on top of that.

In 7 years of using and implementing Dubsado, this is the biggest discount I have seen. If you’ve been waiting to implement a proper CRM and automation system, this is your moment.

And if you want it implemented strategically, mapped properly, and built around your business model rather than a generic template, we can explore that too!

You don’t need to be available 24/7 to run a premium business, but you do need a structure that works whether you’re online or not.

Any questions, feel free to reply to this email! The sale ends this Friday, February 27th at 1pm PT.

GET 60% OFF NOW

Lauren

P.S. 5 minutes. Proposal signed, contract read, payment received. That's how we run proper businesses.