5 Systems To Streamline In Your Web Design Business

There are five web design business systems you can streamline to skyrocket your confidence, client experience and income potential.

Once you have these 5 systems organized, you’re gonna feel so much better in your business! You're going to feel so much more confident and ready to bring in clients.

The 5 systems are:

A repeatable process to get clients
Your booking process
Collecting website content from clients
Presenting your design work to clients
Offboarding clients

Check out my video and the full post for the run down:

My goal is for you to never wonder if you’re doing things “right”.

To avoid this, take a look at where you’re at NOW and get your foundational business systems set up FIRST (aka what we’re covering in this article)…then layer on all the marketing and growth strategies next.

Think about your business systems like training for a marathon.

You wouldn’t try to run 15 miles the first day, or even the first week. You’d jog 1-2 miles and see how it felt. You’d get your form figured out. You’d focus on your breathing. You’d build up stamina and condition your body to run longer or perform better over time.

If you forced yourself to run 15 miles the first day, you’d probably be hurting BADLY for the next few days. You might even want to quit before the end of the first week (#freelancelife, am I right??). Your body wouldn’t be READY for it.

This is like layering on growth strategies in your business before you’re ready. This is like comparing yourself to other designers who are further along than you. This is like telling yourself you have to be on Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook everyday so you can get clients…but not actually feeling ready to run the race.

What I urge you to do FIRST is take a deeeeep breath. Cuz I know you’ve got this! Then take a look at these 5 foundational systems. Understand how you can organize them and get them streamlined. Use your systems to build confidence and free up time, creativity energy + brain space. THEN GO GET THE CLIENTS AND RUN THE MARATHON.

Here are the 5 systems you need to streamline in your web design business:

A repeatable process to get clients

If your business isn’t getting clients…is it even a business?? You’ve got to have clients in order to make income! So that's why this is the first system to streamline.

We need to make getting clients feel as easy as breathing. We need a solid plan to attract leads and turn them into paying clients.

Once you have this figured out, you’re gonna feel more stable and see the consistent income you’re looking for.

To create a repeatable way to get design clients, ask yourself these 3 questions:

1) How am I going to attract potential clients?

We need to be out there, we need to be visible. As online business owners, we have to make sure that people know we exist and understand how we help them. Create a community around your business or get in front of other people’s audiences so more people can find you!
Take time to understand your ideal client’s goals and roadblocks (I've got a really good video on this), then make those specific things the topic of your content. This will help you attract the right people into your business!

2) How am I going to turn these people into client leads?

Next you need a solid way to turn them into leads (through an application, service guide download, contact form on your website, etc).
Then you need something that's going to nurture them and help them get excited to work with you.

3) How will I convert leads and get them ready to book with me?

I know that sounds ominous, but most designers do this through a sales call or a proposal!

Here are some resources to help you streamline how you get clients:

A powerful way to position your services + book more clients — A quick video that helps you understand how you can position your services as an actual NEED, not just something that would be “nice-to-have” for your clients. When you approach your marketing from this point-of-view, it’ll be easier to position yourself as an expert, build trust, charge more and make more of an impact through your business.
Everything I know to be true about getting $5,000+ website clients — A very juicy blog post with 9 actionable steps you can take to start landing higher-paying clients. There’s a Q+A video at the end with me answering questions from my audience that will help you understand the REAL difference between a high-end website client and a budget website client, the 2 main things you need to uncover in your market research (the EXACT, SPECIFIC things you need to understand about your customers in order to create, sell and deliver $5k+ packages) and simple things you can do to elevate the client experience and make working with you a fun, special event for your clients.
Understanding the value you provide (so you can communicate it + grow your business) — A video I created all about understanding the value you provide and actually TALKING about it. I give you a real-life example from my own business so you can see how easy it can be to talk to your audience and outright TELL them why your business is so awesome, then ask them to keep learning more and work with you. I want you to be able to give your audience something to connect with while reinforcing the idea that you’re a magical creative genius that can help them get from point A to B 🔮🦄🌟 There’s a free no opt-in worksheet you can snag to help you figure out your message!

Your booking process

Once someone has found out about your business and decides they wanna work with you, you need a streamlined way to book them into your calendar.

Now, I used to waste so much freaking time in my business coming up with custom proposals and trying to figure out how to get someone to book with me quickly.

I’d send out proposals and the lead would take foreeeeever to actually book with me. All the while, I’m holding space in my calendar for them that may or may not be booked. Meaning I can’t hold space for other people who might be ready to book NOW. I’ve talked to a lot of designers with this problem, too!

And the proposal is just step 1.

You also have to get clients to sign their contract and make a payment so they can actually get booked into your design calendar.

I found a way to do this that not only helps me book quicker and get paid quicker…it’s actually something that clients love. I can't tell you how many clients have gone through my booking process and said, “Oh my god, that was amazing. Teach me how to do it. I loved it!”

I don't know if you realize what I just said…but I just told you my clients used to love paying me money. They loved it.

To create a streamlined booking process your clients love:

1) Proposal

You need to use a tool that lets you create and send a proposal quickly (something that doesn’t take hours and hours to create for each client). I use Dubsado which you can read more about here.

2) Contract

You need a way to get them to sign your contract (again, Dubsado).

3) Invoice

You need a way to get them to pay their deposit or their invoice very, very quickly so that you can get them booked into your calendar, onboarded into your system and moving onto system #3 (Dubsado does this all in one step!)

Here are some resources to help you streamline your booking process:

The biggest mistakes designers make during the onboarding process (and what to do instead!) — How your onboarding process goes is the biggest indicator of how successful a project will be, so it’s important to get it right. In this video, I lay out three of the BIGGEST mistakes I see designers make during the client onboarding stage and show you what to do instead. My paralegal friend also shows you exactly what her proposals and contracts look like in the video :)
5 ways Dubsado helps me run my web design business — Oh man do I love Dubsado!! This blog post dives deep into my favorite time-saving tips and shows you exactly how I use Dubsado to streamline and automate my booking process, client communication and more.

Collecting website content

This is the number one struggle that freelance designers face, no matter how experienced you are!

Whether you're brand new freelancer or an agency; whether you've worked with one client or 50 clients; whether you work by yourself or with a team.

This is tough because guess what, most website design clients aren’t professional copywriters. They don't know what to say and they need your help! They're hiring you to be the professional and help them get everything together so that you can create an amazing website for them.

When it comes to your content collection process:

How can you help your clients understand what each page of their website needs to say?
How can you make it easy for them to get you what you need, so that projects don’t drag out and stress you out?

I’ve created a few things to help you answer these questions:

The biggest mistake you’re making with getting website content from clients (and how it’s impacting your income) — In this post I wrote for Elevate and Cultivate, I share what you can do to *easily* change how your content collection process goes...AND how it can help you increase your web design prices like whoa. I know because I developed a method that's been proven on myself AND my course students :)
An easy way to make an extra $1,000 for your website designs — I know a lot of web designers are working towards charging $5000 and more for their websites, so I thought I’d share what helped me tip my prices over the $5k mark — and with confidence — so that the higher price point was easier to sell to my clients.
Quicker Content Framework — This is a template and mini course I created to help you revamp your entire content collection process so you can start getting website content from clients on time. More than 200 designers have already enrolled!

Presenting your website designs + collecting feedback

Okay, so the fourth system after your client has turned in their website content…you’ve designed their website, you've done all this work, you've understood who they are, what their goals are, what their website needs are, and you’ve created a design.

Now it's time to present your design to the client!

This part of the project process can get derailed because a lot of us aren't explaining our designs to our clients. We're not saying, “Hey, this is why I made this design decision. This is how it ties back to your goals.” And you're not presenting things in a professional manner.

The second part of this system is collecting feedback. Most of us have a clause in our contracts that outlines a specific amount of revisions. We need to make sure that clients understand what a revision even is — and when it starts and when it stops — so that we don't collect their feedback and then have them keep adding stuff to our plate.

We also need to make sure we're getting feedback that's actually thoughtful and useful. So helping your clients understand how to do that and giving them a format so the it's easy for them is really important.

When presenting your work and collecting client feedback, ask yourself:

How can you present work so that you’re educating clients and helping them see your expert point-of-view?
Are you relating your designs back to your clients’ goals? This is a VERY effective way to build trust and position yourself as an expert!
Are you outlining how many revisions come with your website designs? If so, are you 100% sure clients have a clear way to know when a revision has started and stopped?
- This is so important because most of us have clauses in our contracts that say additional revisions require an additional fee! We have the clause but have a hard time actually enforcing it. But if there’s a formal way to submit feedback, it’s obvious when you’ve gone past the allotted amount.
- We can help our clients by making sure they understand how to give helpful feedback and give them a clear way to submit their thoughts.

Here’s a resource to help you streamline your presentation + revision process:

13 templates to help you streamline your web design business — This is a guest post I wrote that goes over how you can use templates to elevate your client experience and what templates I recommend for each stage of the client journey.

Offboarding your clients

After someone goes through the feedback process and you’ve made the revisions and gotten their website launched into the world, you need a really easy way to:

Make sure the client understands that the project is done, and
Seize the opportunity to grab feedback and/or a testimonial, ask for a referral and maybe even ask your client to keep working with you in the future.

You can do this through a single canned email that you write up then reuse every time a project ends.

Here are some important things to include in your offboarding email with design clients:

1) Ask for feedback

Ask your clients how the project went from their point-of-view! This is going to allow you to keep refining your process so that every new client who comes in will have a better and better experience with you.

2) Ask for a referral

The next thing you can do is say, “Hey [Client], I love working with people just like you and I wanna reward you if you refer someone new to my business. If you know anybody who needs help with X, Y + Z…send them my way and I'll […give you something in return like a package in the mail, a discount, design credit, etc.].”

3) Ask for a testimonial

Everybody needs testimonials and social proof to use on social media and our websites. Make sure you’re grabbing a testimonial as often as you can to help you book new work and position yourself as an authority.

4) Ask them to keep working with you

I’m guessing you did a lot of work to get this client, right? It can be really, really smart to offer them more ways to keep working with you — whether it's a retainer package, social media management, ongoing marketing help, etc.

This will allow you to get more work booked in your calendar without having to spend more and more time marketing your business. GENIUS 🤓

Here are some resources to help you streamline your offboarding process:

High-Value Process Roadmap — This is a free 3-part bundle I created just for web designers to help them create a custom-tailored project and client process, including how to wrap up your projects.
Client Communication Pack — If you’re struggling with what to say to clients at each step of the process, snag this pack of 35 canned responses so you know exactly what to say and how to do it professionally.

Okay, so just to run through those again. These are the 5 essential systems and processes to streamline in your web design business: