Running an interior design business can be overwhelming. Between project management, client communication, and keeping track of all your files, it’s enough to make anyone’s head spin! But, luckily there are tools out there that can make your life so much easier! In this blog post, we are discussing three of our favorite operational programs and why they are better than their competitors! We are exploring why we prefer Dubsado over Honeybook for CRM, Google Drive over Dropbox for storage, and ClickUp over Asana for project management.
CRM for Interior Designers: Dubsado vs. Honeybook
First up, let’s talk about customer relationship management (CRM). Dubsado and Honeybook are two popular options for interior designers. While both have similar features such as canned emails, invoicing, contract signing, and forms, Dubsado takes things to the next level.
Dubsado allows for greater customization, particularly with their forms which allows you to incorporate on-brand questionnaires and proposals that are sent out automatically. The ability to customize your forms with your branding is so important to offer an elevated customer experience. This feature alone makes Dubsado such a great choice for interior designers.
The automated workflows in Dubsado are also more robust than Honeybook. In both programs, you can create a task, send a form, or send an email. Beyond those actions, Dubsado offers many more. For example, you can add workflow steps to change the project status, send an invoice, create a Todo, or pause the workflow. These additional actions allow for greater customization and a more automated process.
We also love that Dubsado’s free trial allows you to use the program for up to 3 clients before paying, instead of offering a seven-day trial, so you have plenty of time to get comfortable before even paying for the program.
And if you are feeling overwhelmed with setting up Dubsado for your business, we have a custom service just for that. We also offer Dubsado membership services so that you can get the ongoing support that you need.
File Management for Interior Designers: Google Drive vs. Dropbox
Now let’s talk storage. Dropbox is a popular cloud storage platform, but Google Drive offers more features and benefits for interior designers. With both tools, you can save your files online so that your team or clients can access them but we prefer Google Drive for better collaboration, the interface, and the price!
Google Drive is ideal for collaborating in real-time, particularly with using Google’s other tools such as Docs and Sheets. We use Google Sheets for product tracking and our team and clients can view that in real-time and get the latest updates. We also use Google Docs for a multitude of things in our business and again love that our team always has the latest. If we were using Dropbox to share this information, we would constantly be saving docs and spreadsheets and uploading them which is not the most efficient process. With Google Drive, we save time and increase efficiency, as everyone can work on the same document at the same time.
Google Drive also gives you more storage space for free! The free plan of Google Drive gives you 15 GB of storage whereas the free Dropbox plan only gives you 2 GB.
We also love Google Drive’s interface and the search function. While we have an organized file structure (and recommend that you have one too) we love that we can start typing in the search bar and Google will suggest the files as we type and we always find what we need.
Project Management for Interior Designers: ClickUp vs. Asana
Lastly, let’s talk about project management. ClickUp and Asana are two popular project management tools that allow you to collaborate and manage tasks for your projects and business. Within both, you can plan out your projects, assign tasks, set deadlines, and communicate with your team. With ClickUp, there is a lot more customization and features, making it ideal for interior designers and setting up project management templates.
One of our favorite and essential ClickUp features is the ability to have custom task statuses. Just marking something as complete is not enough for a complex project. With ClickUp you can set up your statuses for your needs such as: in progress, under review, revisions needed, waiting for client approval, etc.
We also love using ClickUp’s many custom fields for our lists. You can set up fields with dropdowns, labels, notes, comments, files, etc. so that you can include all of the information you need for each task in an organized manner.
ClickUp also makes collaboration with your team a breeze. You can assign multiple people to a task, you can assign a comment to a team member, and embed a chat view.
ClickUp also has a native documents feature so you can keep project or meeting notes all in ClickUp within your project’s folder. You can also embed a spreadsheet so you can keep your product tracking spreadsheet, budget spreadsheet, or any other spreadsheet in your Project Folder for easy access.
Additionally, once you familiarize yourself with the interface, ClickUp is easy to use, with a clean and modern interface. The mobile app is also very user-friendly and also allows you to manage your tasks on the go. ClickUp is a powerful tool that can help you stay on top of your projects and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
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In conclusion, Dubsado, Google Drive, and ClickUp are game-changers for interior designers. Dubsado offers more customizable forms and workflows than Honeybook, which is essential for Interior Designers. Google Drive offers more collaborative features and benefits than Dropbox, with an easy-to-use interface. Lastly, ClickUp provides more customization and features for project management than Asana, with an organized and modern interface. Using these tools can save you time, increase efficiency, and ultimately help you run your interior design business more smoothly.
If you have any questions about these tools or need help setting them up, we would love to help! Head over to our contact page to schedule a complimentary discovery call where we can chat about your systems.
