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Figuring out where your leads are coming from is an important step in your marketing efforts because you want to figure out where your time, energy (and maybe even ad money) is best spent. In this article, I’m going to take you through 4 easy steps to track lead sources and what to do with that info. Rather listen? I talked about this process with my friend Sara on The Bright Balloon Podcast! Step 1: collect the info! Don't forget to ask your customers how they heard about you on your inquiry form. Whether you’re using a form from a CRM like 17hats, a form through your website, Google Forms, etc. I highly encourage you to be sure this question is on there. Disclaimer: Some of the links on my website are affiliate links, which means, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. I’ll also suggest making this question type a drop-down selection, rather than a checkbox or text field, for a few reasons: If someone checks more than one box in a checkbox question, how do you know where they initially heard about you? Text can always be spelt wrong, abbreviated, etc. If customers can write in anything, it’ll be very hard to compile that data into useful info A drop-down form will give you much cleaner data! Now, what to include in this drop-down question, where you ask your customers how they heard about you! I would suggest the following options: repeat customer referral online search any of your active social profiles any local networking organizations you might participate in other. As a bonus tip, I’d also consider having a follow-up question immediately after this drop-down question, asking something like “If a referral or other, we’d love to hear the details!”. This should help you capture the individual names of the people spreading the good word about your business as well as any lead sources that you didn’t think to list. Just be careful not to list too many options in your drop-down... customers might not take the time to read through more than 10 options or so, and could end up just selecting something in order to move on to the next question of your form. Step 2: Compile the data After you’ve been tracking your lead sources for a while, export or download a list of your contacts to view the results in a spreadsheet. If you were previously using a checkbox or text field to ask this question, you may need to spend some time cleaning up your data to make sense of it. For example, cells that have been filled in with checkboxes may have commas between all lead sources that were checked. You might consider making each lead source in that cell its own entry by moving it to a separate row. Additionally, for cells previously filled in from a text field, make sure all cells containing an abbreviation or misspelling are updated to match the format of that lead source in your drop-down list. And if some referral names were written in, replace the name with “referral”... but of course be sure not to lose track of that name! In any case, grab this free download with a Google Sheets template that can help you summarize and clean up your data into an easy to understand pie chart! Step 3: Utilize the info What’s the pie chart telling you? Are you getting a lot of referrals you might consider sending thank you cards for? Is nobody finding you via search? Is it time to stop posting on a certain social platform? Let this data inform your marketing decisions. Take advantage of what’s working and give yourself permission to stop or slow down your marketing efforts where it’s not working. This said, I will always advocate for doing what you can to improve your presence in online search. If it’s not very strong, improve it by doing things like: Updating your service area on your Google Business Profile Adding a few products, services and more detailed information on Google Business Profile Adding keywords to the meta descriptions, titles and copy of your website pages You might also consider setting up an automation in Zapier to send your Instagram posts to your Google Business Profile to keep it fresh and updated. Anyway, back to the point of utilizing the info… this is a goldmine of data that your customers are giving you through this question, so it is definitely in your best interest to pay attention to where your customers are coming from! "This is a goldmine of data that your customers are giving you." Step 4: Repeat Now that you’ve taken the steps above to track your lead sources, I'd suggest checking in with this data every so often to stay on top of where your customers are coming from. Whether you’re manually downloading / exporting your contacts each time, or using a tool like Zapier to automatically and continually update your spreadsheet and chart, go ahead and set that reminder for yourself right now to check it each quarter, twice a year, monthly… whatever interval feels sustainable and helpful to you. Consistent check-ins will allow you to make small tweaks in your marketing plans throughout the year, rather than huge shifts to the way you work. And it all starts with a simple question!

As service providers, we’re always looking for ways to stand out to our prospective customers. And of course our talents for our work play a role in this, but so does the way we manage our customer experience with streamlined processes and great communication. Below are three ways that you can stand out from the competition, regardless of your experience and longevity in your industry. Rather listen? This is a conversation I had as a guest on The Bright Balloon Podcast! Tip #1 - Communicate quickly When a new lead reaches out to you, be sure you acknowledge their request as soon as possible. This doesn’t mean that you need to confirm your actual availability right away, but a simple message to confirm that you’ve received their request and they are on your radar will go a long way. Think about it… have you ever submitted a form without getting any kind of confirmation message or email? Kind of frustrating and confusing, right? Did it even go through? How long do you wait before you follow up? Do you even want to if this is how awkward and clunky the booking process is going to be? Don’t put your customers through that! Have some kind of automated message that comes up, or better yet, an email that goes out automatically and lets them know you will be getting back to them with more details soon. This is a common feature in any CRM or form builder, so check your settings now to ensure your customers are getting some type of automated message after they submit your inquiry form. Tip #2 - Answer their questions before they have them Speaking of that automated email, this is a great place to share with your customer the next steps in your booking process. If they’re ready to book you right away this will help make that happen ASAP! And if they aren’t exactly sure whether you’re the right service provider for them, having laid out what your process is will probably have them feeling confident in your ability to get their job done. If you can answer their questions before your customer has to ask them, you’ll increase your trust factor a ton, and shine as someone who is a true professional in what they do. For my fellow introverts, I recognize how pushy this might feel. But keep in mind that even your customer probably wants to get past the “messy middle” stage, between their inquiry with you and getting the project accomplished. And you know your process better than your customer, so lay it out for them and it should really help you manage your customer experience with impressive communication and organization. You know your process better than your customer. Tip #3 - Have a clear process It kind of goes without saying that you can’t communicate your process well if it’s not even clear to you! Take some time to map out how your ideal booking process would go. Is it all through email and forms? Or is there an in-person, phone or video consult involved? No matter what type of communication suits you best, also think about all of the details you need to know about their request. Plan out when and how you’ll ask for those details, keeping in mind the length of any forms and questionnaires you’re sending. You may need to spread out the number of questions asked in each. Finally, what is your payment policy? Do you require a deposit or full payment ahead of their date? These are key pieces to your process that you should be able to communicate with your potential customers so that they know what is needed from them, and when. Another reason that having a clear process will help you manage your customer experience is because you are less likely to mistakenly allow different processes for different customers. For example, say you are fortunate enough to receive a referral (yay!). For customer #1 you asked for full payment before their booking date. But for customer #2 you allow only a deposit be paid before their booking date, and the remainder due within a week after their booking date. This probably won’t feel fair to customer #1 if they knew, especially after they were the one to send a referral your way. Now this is not completely unavoidable, because processes do change, but if something like this happens simply because you’re not aware of your own process, it could really cause some sticky situations. Is there anything that you can do to better manage your customer experience? Maybe it’s writing down your process on a physical sheet of paper. Maybe it’s saving some email templates in your email service provider. Or maybe it’s creating customized workflows that guide both you and your customer through your process without missing a beat. If you’re serious about standing out by improving your customer experience, consider allowing a CRM (customer relationship management) tool like 17hats to support you in that. Set up an automated email, plus tons of other email templates, workflows and documents that support you through your journey with every client. You can learn about my 17 favorite features of the platform by jotting down your contact info below! Disclaimer: Some of the links on my website are affiliate links, which means, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

One CRM that is growing in popularity across the balloon industry is 17hats, and I’ve had the pleasure of setting up dozens of systems for balloon business owners all around the United States. Whether you’re here to learn more about the platform before purchasing, or to learn more about how to optimize your current subscription, I’m so happy to share with you what I think are 10 of the best features of 17hats for balloon businesses: Here's a preview of what we'll cover: #1: 3-in-1 quote, contract & invoice #2: Quote options #3: Workflow from a product #4: Workflow from a drop-down #5: To-do lists #6: Custom fields #7: Zapier integration #8: If/then logic in questionnaires #9: Online scheduling availability #10 Automatically move a project to another calendar #1 Send a quote, contract & invoice together Hands down, my favorite feature. It streamlines things in your process so much! The 3-in-1 documents let your customers approve a quote (more on those later), sign a contract and pay an invoice all from one email. It can all happen in a matter of seconds, rather than days. And it doesn’t always have to include all three documents, either. However, any combination of documents does need to start with a quote, meaning you can send: all three documents a quote + contract a quote + invoice Access this by starting a new quote template and connecting (or creating) the corresponding contract template. Whatever they select in the quote will automatically get filled in the invoice! #2 Quote options You can create up to three different sections within your quotes: Using the standard quote items section, quote out exactly what your customers asked for Using the “choose one” section, let them choose from different options (such as free pickup or delivery) Using the “choose any” section, recommend and upsell some additional options that pair well with their standard items. They may choose some or none of what you include here. Ideas include: Vinyl personalization Greenery weaved throughout their balloon garland Takedown / striking services You can build your quote using any combination of these sections, or with only one type of section. And as we’ve already seen, if you send the quote along with an invoice, anything they select from these choices will transfer into their invoice! Rather listen? I talk about several of these features as a guest on The Bright Balloon Podcast! #3 Start a workflow from a certain product or service Now that we’ve seen how you can build your quotes in creative ways, let’s talk about another thing that can happen from a well-built quote… You also have the option of automatically starting a workflow for a particular item when the invoice is paid. This is especially helpful if you have products or services with special fulfillment processes. Let’s think back to the greenery weaved through balloon garlands… if your customer selects that in the “choose any” section and pays their invoice, you could have a workflow start that reminds you to fulfill this item. For example, this workflow might include two to-do items: Place greenery order for pickup one day before the base date Pick up greenery one day before the base date #4 Start a workflow from a drop-down list Similar to starting a workflow from a product or service, you can start a workflow specific to a drop-down selection your customers choose in your lead capture form. For example, maybe you have a different auto-reply email template and process for wedding clients than you do for birthday clients… or for repeat customers versus new customers. Make this workflow magic happen when you add questions to your lead capture form such as “what type of event are you celebrating” and “how did you hear about us” (being sure to create them as a drop-down selection). In that process, you’ll be able to direct certain answers to start your different workflows. #5 Stay on top of all your to-dos Certainly your balloon decor workflows have to-dos, etc. that lead you through your projects. But there are also plenty of other recurring to-dos for your balloon business, such as: Ordering inventory Taking inventory Paying quarterly taxes Checking on the wear and tear of your frames Updating your website for prices, new products, etc… the list goes on! To keep up with these tasks, you can create to-do lists, such as “inventory to-dos”, “financial to-dos” and “marketing to-dos”, for example. Add one-off items, or (more likely) recurring items here. #6 Custom fields Custom fields for your contacts or projects will become tokens that can really add a nice personal touch to your emails and documents. Now, it’s easy to get carried away with these custom fields (I’ve been guilty myself!), so I’d recommend taking these steps before creating any new custom fields: Know the default fields that already exist Ask yourself whether this custom field will add really useful personalization Ask yourself whether this custom field will save you any copy/pasting throughout your process A few great custom fields for balloon businesses are: Setup time (a great token for email reminders/confirmations & in your quote) Colors/theme (in the description of your various decor products) Personalization (if you have this add-on, use this token in the line item description for your quote) Custom project fields will also populate nicely along the right side of your screen while viewing your project. To get started with custom fields, head to Account Settings > Custom Fields (under Account Templates). #7 Connecting to Zapier Zapier is another awesome tool for streamlining your business. It connects many common business platforms together with automation. Its integration with 17hats will copy new contacts to and from other sources automatically. Helpful uses include: Sending new 17hats contacts to a Google Sheet Sending new 17hats contacts to your email service provider Creating new 17hats contacts based on entries from another web form you have This will mean you no longer have to manually copy and paste your new contacts back and forth across all your tech! #8 Questionnaire options & if/then logic Questionnaires have slowly become my favorite type of document within 17hats! They’re similar to lead capture forms in the way they collect information from your customers (and map that info to your tokens), but they offer even more capability. Questionnaires can also allow for file uploads, inputting related contacts, displaying images and asking follow-up questions depending on the answers you get in previous questions. Good uses for those features would be things like: asking your customers for inspiration pictures / pictures of their space if they indicated that their delivery address is different than their billing address, have follow-up questions for that additional address #9 Multiple online scheduling availabilities Having different sets of availability in your online scheduling setup is nice for things like Grab & Go Garlands and decor consultation phone calls. This can really help you organize and plan your days. Say, for example, you only offer your Grab & Go Garland pickups on Thursday and Friday afternoons. That would be a separate availability schedule from your decor consultation availability which might be from 9am-11am every weekday (for example). Then there are many other options regarding the timing and approval process for these online bookings, too. #10 Automatically move a project to another calendar If you appreciate a color-coded calendar as much as me, this one is great! It will allow you to know at a glance what your project schedule is like on any given day. It starts by sending new contacts to your “inquired clients” calendar (or some other name like “pending” or “potential”). This is done in the settings of your lead capture form or online scheduling. Then, as you can see how in the image above, this workflow prompts me to send a quote, and once it's paid, an email is automatically sent… and after both of those things are done, clients automatically move to my "booked clients" calendar. (This is actually a sneak peek inside my course, 17hats for Balloon Businesses!) Now, when someone else asks for my availability on that same day I will quickly know that I’m already booked and will need to find another time to work with the new customer. Final notes: The availability of these features will depend on your subscription level. But I whole-heartedly recommend their premier package if you’re serious about streamlining your balloon business with 17hats. Two major reasons are: way more workflow capabilities being able to take payments through online scheduling Wanna learn more? Surprise! I’ve actually got seven more of my favorite features of 17hats included in this free download. If you find that you’re ready to give the platform a try, feel free to grab my referral link to get up to 50% off your annual subscription!

There are so many settings and features in this powerful CRM that it’s easy to miss some here or there. In this article, I’ll share with you what I’d consider to be the three most underutilized features in 17hats. Even if you’ve got some workflows running smoothly, you may not be using the platform to its full potential. Use of these features can help you stay on track with all aspects of your business, and get some high-level insight into the different types of projects you’re completing with your customers. Plus, I’ll explain how all of these features work together to help you discover these insights and take action based on what you find. Here’s what we’ll cover: To-do lists Tags Recent client activity First off, the to-do lists I love these for keeping track of all the recurring tasks in my business. Things like paying bills, updating my website, checking in on my lead sources, managing my email list and more. And these tasks can be set up to repeat at various daily, weekly, monthly or yearly intervals, making it really easy for you to stay on top of all the things you need to do as a business owner. Also see: Steps to track lead sources They can also be organized and placed onto separate to-do lists. I currently have lists for marketing items, financial items and miscellaneous items. Other to-do list ideas could include inventory and personnel items, for example. The last thing to know about the to-do list section is that you can also view and manage any to-dos taking place in your workflows from here. They will automatically populate on the top, under “Due & Upcoming”. Next, let’s talk tags. Tags are such great ways to add little bits of information to your contacts and projects. I especially love adding tags to any drop-down questions I ask in my lead capture forms and questionnaires. Then, depending on what my customers select in that question, I can have a different tag applied. As an example, while I set up the 17hats accounts of my balloon business clients, one of the questions on the lead capture form is typically “what are you celebrating?” I prefer to make this a drop-down type of question because I can then have a project tag automatically applied that correlates to the type of event the customer selects. By doing this, my clients will now have the ability to search on their projects to find how many weddings, birthday parties, baby showers, etc. they are decorating for. If they find they are doing a lot of decor for any particular type of event, I always like to encourage they express that in their marketing so that prospective customers will know that my clients are proficient in their customers’ needs for that type of event. Tags can also be applied in the settings of your lead capture forms, your online scheduling and in your workflows. Tags to use in these areas might include “inquiry” and “booked” versions of the type of project that’s running. Thinking back to the balloon businesses I work with, an example of this type of tag implementation would be a “balloon decor inquiry” tag being automatically applied through the lead capture form. Then, as the workflow progresses and the lead becomes a customer by paying an invoice, a tag such as “booked balloon decor” could be automatically applied to the project (and contact). With these tagging systems in place, you can then utilize your to-do lists to get reminders to search upon these tags and get some insight as to how many “inquiry” versus “booked” jobs you’ve had, therefore finding a conversion rate. The third of the underutilized features in 17hats... ... to consider using is in the lower right of your Dashboard (under the weather widget). It’s a small section labeled “Recent Client Activity” and in the top right corner of that section, check out the “See All Activity” link to open up a ton of insight into the documents and bookings you have with your customers. See what’s been sent, paid, signed, etc. and filter by project or customer name, dates and even those tags you’ve started implementing. In the balloon business example, if tags that correlate to the type of event have been incorporated, now you would also be able to see all the invoices paid that have that tag attached. And then you’ll not only know how many baby showers (for example) you’ve done, but also how much income it meant to your business. Add this sorting task to a to-do list and complete it for each event type every so often to really know what types of events you should be sure to boast in your marketing. ____ >>>> Want more on 17hats? Grab a free download that talks about 17 of my favorite features!

The advantages of using 17hats quotes in your business Using 17hats to run your business with lead capture forms, online scheduling, quotes, contracts, invoices and more can really streamline things for both you and your customers. And one of the most beneficial pieces in this streamlining toolkit is 17hats quotes. But what’s the difference between sending a quote and an invoice when you’ve reached the billing part of the process with your customers? There are a number of settings and capabilities that the two documents share, but a few key differences that almost always make a quote the better option include: Having a “standard” quote section, a “choose one” section and a “choose any” section Allowing customers to be able to choose a quantity of an item in the “choose any” section Being able to send a quote along with other documents (contract and/or invoice) Let’s examine these differences between 17hats quotes and invoices. Why would you use the "choose one" section in a 17hats quote? This section is great for allowing your customer to choose between things like: Delivery or pickup Installation and breakdown or installation only Different product/service package levels Different designs of the same product they’ve requested As noted by the name of the section, customers will only be able to choose one of the items listed here, so you’ll want to be careful that you’re giving your customers enough options that fulfill the needs of their request. Why would you use the "choose any" section? The “choose any” section is perfect for listing some complimentary upsells that your customer might also like to consider adding to their purchase.They can then choose any of those upsell items or choose none before accepting the quote. Adding “choose any” items can also eliminate some of the back and forth emails in order to get the invoice just right. You can just give your customer some final choices about what you offer on the quote when they’re already in payment mode. Another unique thing about this “chose any” section is that it’s the only place that can allow your customer to also select the number of units they’d like of any particular item. A great example of this type of item for decor businesses might be centerpieces, because they’re usually small enough and easy enough to put together for their order, even if you weren’t sure your customer would request them. And no, you are not required to add items to all of these sections - only one! But what happens if you just don’t have a need for your customers to be able to choose anything on your quotes? Should you just send an invoice instead? I’d still opt for no, because (as we’ll see in the next point), starting with a quote will also allow you to send other documents along with. And even if there are no choices to be made on the quote, your customer can still have the chance to accept the quote and confirm their interest in doing business with you. Need a step-by-step walkthrough of how to use all of your 17hats features? Grab this checklist. What if you don't use contracts in your business? Well, I’m not a legal expert and am definitely not giving any legal advice here, but I certainly think you should take the time to get yourself set up with a contract that protects you and your business. Even if you don’t go as far as a contract written up by a lawyer, you might even consider starting with a checklist of notes that you want your customer to be aware of and agree to. Whatever type of agreement language you come up with, you can include it between your quote and your invoice for your customer to complete with just a few clicks. And as a last resort, you are able to skip the contract / agreement entirely and still benefit from the features of a quote by including only the invoice along with the quote. In any case, whatever your customer selects on their quote will transfer onto their invoice and you can benefit from having both of those documents taken care of through one email. ____ So what do you think? Did this spark some ideas for what you could include in the options of your quotes? I hope so! And I’d love to help you use these features to your advantage. Check out my #stopthescatter Setup Service and Account Review Calls to see how we can work together on utilizing quotes (and all the powerful features) in 17hats!