As busy business owners and managers, we live and die by our calendars. Double-booking yourself, cramming meetings together so you don’t even have time for a bathroom break, and forgetting about a call entirely?
It’s happened to all of us — but it doesn’t have to.
If you’re still dealing with calendar drama, it’s time to find a calendar scheduling tool, my friend. And if you use HoneyBook, you’re in luck. Their Scheduler tool is one of the most robust I’ve found, and you don’t have to pay for an additional service like Acuity or Calendly.
If you’ve been manually scheduling all your calls, it’s time to quit that. It’s 2023 and we’re focused on being efficient, productive stewards of our time.
If you’ve used another scheduling tool, like Acuity or Calendly, you might wonder if you should stick with those tools instead of using HoneyBook. Honestly? The pros to bringing it all to HoneyBook are pretty extensive:
While other tools offer similar benefits, the key here is that HoneyBook Scheduler is just as (if not more) robust than other tools on the market.
If you’re already using HoneyBook as your CRM, it’s time to use the scheduler tool. You’ll save money on an additional subscription and reduce how much time you spend remembering all your logins (wink, wink).
As we’ve already mentioned, HoneyBook’s Scheduler is like Acuity and Calendly. Essentially, the HoneyBook Scheduler “reads” your Google, Apple, or other calendar to automatically block any time you’re already busy.
All you have to do is sync your Google calendar in the Scheduler, and you’re good to go.
Once you have your baseline availability, you can create different “sessions” based on your offers and set specific availability for each of them.
For example, let’s say you offer 20-minute discovery calls and you only want to take discovery calls on Mondays.
You can set those parameters inside HoneyBook Scheduler and nobody can book outside those rules. No more “Are you sure you don’t have time for…”
All you have to do is create the session…
And adjust your availability by days of the week.
You can either set availability to be “standard” across weeks, or change availability as needed. You can even block off time you’ll be on vacation or unavailable.
Expert tip: Use the “Buffer” option when creating your sessions so you leave time for bathroom breaks and movement during busy call days.
Once you’ve got your Scheduler availability and sessions created, you can set up automated emails to confirm the booked event and remind people that it’s coming up. You choose the frequency and can customize the messages so it feels on-brand (and you’re not bothering anyone with too-frequent reminders).
Now for the main event: Making sure you get paid for any session that requires payment — before you hold the session!
This is an especially great feature for coaches, consultants, service providers who offer VIP days, and even photographers who book specific timed sessions.
To do this, you can create an invoice in HoneyBook — and add a Scheduler block.
From there, you can move the Scheduler “block” to be the very first thing people see when they open your link or email.
With the Scheduler first, the client would choose a day and time that works for them, click next, and then they’d be prompted to review the invoice and pay.
The really cool thing here is that you can decide if you require payment before the booking can be finalized. In the Scheduler block settings, you can toggle “Client must pay to reserve session” if you want.
You can also require that they have to book a session (which is great for coaches who need their clients to use up their call credits).
Once a client has selected a session time, they’re taken to the invoice page and prompted to enter their payment details. Voila! It’s that easy to get paid when you get booked. Easy peasy, right?
We love HoneyBook — it’s one of the best CRMs out there. We especially love that it makes it easy for you to get back to the work that gets you paid… without actually worrying about getting paid.
HoneyBook automates virtually every element of your client experience — from onboarding with contracts and invoices to payment reminders and more. Plus, with automated workflows, you can cut down on manual work (for you or anyone on your team), which saves money in the long run.
HoneyBook’s features also eliminate the need for tools like Acuity and Calendly, as well as contract signing tools, note-taking apps, and even email marketing and form tools.
In our opinion, though, the real money-maker comes from being able to seamlessly turn leads into paying clients with automated contact forms and communications. No more lost leads because you took too long to get back to them. Just really impressed hot leads who have everything they need to work with you, and confidence that you have your stuff together.
Want to learn how to make a great first impression with HoneyBook (and save your business time and labor)? Our HoneyBook Course can help.
With our HoneyBook Course, we’ll show you how to:
When you join the course, you get:
✓50+ On-demand video lessons
✓Step-by-step walkthroughs with examples
✓Organized sections and streamlined videos
✓Tutorials on plug & play templates
✓ 3 months inside our Systems School community for additional support and training
✓And more
Want to get booked, get paid, and get back to your most important work? Grab the HoneyBook Course today for just $497.
