Setting Up Your Account

You will want to take a few moments to thoroughly set up your HoneyBook account right in the beginning. Of course, going back later is always possible, but completing it now will save you tons of time later.

Branding Your Account

Your brand is who you are—it’s the heart and soul of your business. Uploading your company’s images and assets into HoneyBook ensures that all communication going out of the platform looks like your company and aligns with your brand, and the clients receiving your files and emails will feel the continuity!

Brand Elements

You can add brand elements to several different aspects of your account. You can add a main logo, secondary logo, add your brand colors and a header image.

Brand Specs

Main Logo

This logo is featured on the image banner at the top of Brochures, Proposals, Contracts, and Invoices. Image size is 100 x 100 px and images should be in PNG, JPG, or GIF format.

Secondary Logo

This logo is featured in the header of your Contracts. ideal image size is 300 x 100 px. and images should be in PNG, JPG, or GIF format.

Main Button Color

Your button color will show on any client-facing buttons in files or emails.You can select from the color chart, or type in a hex code.

Default Header Image 

This is the image you see in your projects and files. You can choose to upload a new image, or select from any images you’ve already added to your Library. Headers will default to this image when you create new projects or files, but you can always change them. The ideal image size is 750 x 300 px.

Lead Data

Leads can come from anywhere—social media, organic online searches, word of mouth—so customizing your lead sources is crucial to understanding exactly where your business is coming from and which channels are working best for you.

A Pipeline

Some stages are built into your HoneyBook account and cannot be moved or deleted, because certain actions that your clients take on files will automatically trigger movement between these stages. These stages are indicated by a lock icon in the customization screen. That said, you can also add your own stages to really customize your workflow!

Pipeline Stages 

The Pipeline is your homepage and shows all of your workspaces and events at-a-glance. You can filter the pipeline view by event status and access your event overviews and workspaces. Workspace stages must be manually moved. In your pipeline, click on the workspace stage and select the appropriate stage from the drop-down menu.

Workspace

A workspace is a place where you can communicate and coordinate with clients and other vendors about an event. It is also the place where your client brochures, proposals, invoices, and questionnaires are stored. You can send messages and collaborate through the feed. A wedding can have multiple workspaces. If you are working with multiple vendors on a specific event and want to keep their communications private from your clients, create a new workspace to work with them and they will only be able to view content in the workspace they are a part of. Be sure to check to see if vendors have been added before you send an email. 

Files

A file is either a proposal, contract, questionnaire or timeline. You add files to workspaces.

Adding Team Members

This is one of the best features in HoneyBook! If you have an assistant coordinator you’d like to share information with simply add them to the file. They will not need to own a HoneyBook account.

Capturing Leads

Leads are vital to the success of your company and that’s why HoneyBook is such a valuable tool. The program helps you streamline the process from lead to wedding day. HoneyBook will make client management be so much easier and more efficient. To make the very most out of HoneyBook, you should be familiar with the ways a lead can be installed and tracked.

Install the Form

The HoneyBook Contact Form is a widget that can be installed on your company website, allowing you to pose a series of questions to potential clients and collect the information in your HoneyBook account. It can also be easily distributed via a direct link, with no embedding necessary

Manually Add a Lead

Every now and then you will need to manually add a lead into a project. When you create a Project, they will automatically begin in the Inquiry stage of your Project Pipeline. It can then change stages automatically, when you start sending and receiving files; or, you can update the stage via the drop-down menu within the Project itself.  

Customizing Lead Sources

Leads can come from anywhere—social media, organic online searches, word of mouth—so customizing your lead sources is crucial to understanding exactly where your business is coming from and which channels are working best for you. HoneyBook comes with a set of common lead sources to get you started, but you can also add your own and remove some of ours. Once your leads are the way you want them, you can include them as options in a Contact Form, which lets your customers choose how they heard about you, or manually update the source within a Project’s details.

Creating Templates

Templates are one of the great efficiencies that HoneyBook has to offer. From files, to emails, to pricing, they allow you to save your commonly used stuff and easily insert it into future projects.

Here are the Template types that are available to you.

• Brochures
• Contracts
• Emails
• Invoices
• Questionnaires
• Packages
• Payment schedules
• Proposals

Before sending files to your clients and vendors, the first step is to understand the main types of temples you can make in HoneyBook:

Proposal + Agreement

The proposal is a list of services you are proposing to offer and includes a signed agreement with an invoice (payment schedule). When your client receives a proposal, they will be able to review the proposed services, sign the agreement and seamlessly make their payment online.

Questionnaire 

This is one of my favorite features. If you’re like me, you send lots of questionnaires. With this feature, you no longer have to think about when to send them—it’s amazing! The questionnaire is a list of questions you will send your client. When your client receives a questionnaire, they will be able to answer your questions online with the responses automatically being saved to HoneyBook. The questionnaire is perfect for learning more about your clients, location, event and more!

Email Templates

How many emails you do send out each day? Each week? Most emails are often repeated throughout a service, so why not automate them? Create canned messages and let your workflow take care of them. Email templates save you time and allow you to create re-usable content that can be easily emailed. Always use HoneyBook to communicate with your clients and stay away from email. This way all your communication is in only easy to find place.

Timeline

A timeline is the day of events that will be shared with clients and vendors. The timeline helps manage the logistics of the event and keeps all of your clients and vendors informed and prepared.

***NOTE: When creating a timeline template, create it first then SAVE. It will not save your work otherwise.

Create a Proposal + Send a Contract

HoneyBook has really simplified the contract and payment process for small wedding businesses. This is one of the best featured of HoneyBook. They make sending contracts and invoices so easy!

Proposal

The proposal is a list of services you are proposing to offer and includes a signed agreement with an invoice (payment schedule). When your client receives a proposal, they will be able to review the proposed services, sign the agreement and seamlessly make their payment online.

Payment Schedule

Your payment schedule is your payment terms. For example, a retainer will be due at the time of the signed contract. They rest of the amount owned will depend on your contract terms, but it can be easily setup in HoneyBook.

A Service Agreement or Contract

A service agreement is an agreement between you and your client. A service is not tangible, and sometimes it is very subjective. Because of this, you need to be protected with strong contract terms.

Creating and Sending a Proposal

Your invoice will have three parts to it: Proposal, Payment Schedule, and Agreement. Once everything is filled out and ready to go you will send the email to the couple. When a clients pays their retainer online, the credit card company will take 3% of the fee. This is standard business practice so adjust your prices accordingly.

Share a Preferred Vendor List

A preferred vendor list is often included in a wedding planner’s package. It would be wise not to hand this out willy nilly. Our contacts should be a selling point and one of the reasons we are valued. HoneyBook makes giving out a preferred vendor list a hundred times easier.

Vendors

We all know that depending on the vendors you work with, you’ll either have an amazing outcome or a wedding with unhappy clients. It would be wise to update this list often with trusted and vetted vendors. Plus, once you create a really great vendor team, you’ll find yourself with a lot more referral business.

HoneyBook Considerations

There are a few things to mention when it comes to creating a preferred vendor list. Only contacts that have been added to HoneyBook as vendors/creatives—whether by you, by them, or by someone else—are able to be starred. Client accounts cannot be added as preferred vendors. Clicking the attachment will open the list of vendors, and your client can click “Inquire” to send a message to any vendor they are interested in learning more about. If you do not select specific vendors to send, your client will receive all of your preferred vendors as recommendations.

Create a Timeline

A Timeline is an agenda for a Project that can be shared with clients and vendors. This file helps manage the time-specific logistics of the Project, keeping all of your clients and vendors informed and prepared.

Creating Timelines in HoneyBook

This section is a little tricky, but with a little practice, you’ll get the hang of it in no time. Once you get the hang of creating a timeline, you’ll love this feature in Honeybook. Creating an accurate timeline is extremely important but is also a tedious task. Only practice will make you more proficient at creating them.

Workflow 101

Let’s face it, HoneyBook, or any project management system for that matter, is not cheap. And although they have tons of lovely features, if you’re not utilizing all of them, you’re not getting your money’s worth.

Today, let’s change that! Let’s automate your system so you can provide a better client experience!

Client Onboarding

Cut down on the time you spend onboarding clients. With HoneyBook workflows, your onboarding process can be much more efficient. You’ll no longer have to spend an hour or so delivering welcome documents; you can now push one button and it does it for you—every. single. time!

Never Forget Again!

Have you ever forgotten to send an important email or questionnaire? It’s pretty easy to do when you’re juggling 7+ brides at any given time. Workflows prevent tasks from slipping through the cracks.

Your Time Is Valuable

You already know that time = money. So stop wasting time on repeated tasks that you are manually doing over and over. With workflows, you don’t have to think about sending a timeline questionnaire; it will automatically go out at the designated time.

A workflow is the mandatory progression of steps (tasks or activities) that add value to your organization’s activities. These steps should be followed each and every time you work with a client. 

The Tools

The foundational tools every workflow system has are Tasks, Sending Emails, and Sending Questionnaires.

Tasks

Tasks are items that are on your to-do list. These are things you don’t send out but want to be reminded of. For example, doing a summary call or sending an email to a photographer for photos after a wedding.

Email

How many emails you do send out each day? Each week? Most emails are often repeated throughout a service, so why not automate them? Create canned messages and let your workflow take care of them.

Questionnaires

This is one of my favorite features. If you’re like me, you send lots of questionnaires. With this feature, you no longer have to think about when to send them—it’s amazing!

So here’s the lesson you’ve been waiting for: How to Create Your HoneyBook Workflow.

Step #1

First, here’s a little refresher training on the different functions you’re going to use to create your workflow.

Step #2

This is probably the hardest part to creating a workflow: analyzing your process. Pre-planning your workflow is going to save you so much time in the long run. I highly recommend taking the extra step to write down everything you do as soon as a client books. Go ahead and complete the download provided (a freebie bonus just for you!) to help you organize your system.

Step #3

Once you’ve done the hardest part, pre-planning, you can easily move through setting up your workflow. This video will show you how to implement your pre-planning process.

Step #4

Here’s the very last step! Adding the workflow to your client’s project.

So, what did you think? Easy peasy lemon squeezy? Like I stated before, creating a workflow is not for those who lack gumption. It’s time consuming and a mental workout! But I hope you now feel a little better about creating one. Use the worksheet below to help you plan out your 1st workflow.