Check Cherry Live: Choosing the Right Sales Flow for Your Business

0:00 So, we're going to cover each of these and they're broken up into two different sections. One is um the kind of more customer-led, you know, online booking-ish type, you know, customers reaching out. Um and then customers making the decision, purchase, that type of thing, a little bit more hands-off, so to speak. Um and then vendor, more manual. And so, um, you know,

0:24 we've seen customers use, um, all of these, a combination of these, uh, switch between these, that type of thing. So, um, we thought we'd cover them. So, I'm going to start with the, uh, the easiest store, the most simple one, uh, on just direct online booking. Uh, it's something that Check Cherry started with. I personally am a fan of, uh, online booking and it's pretty

0:48 straightforward in Check Cherry. And again, uh, feel free to comment with your experiences, um, you know, on any of these. There's downsides and plus sides to all of them. Um, but basically, you set up your packages in Check Cherry. Um, and then you grab a, uh, a link, you know, and you can get one one way to grab it is down here. Um, and you can basically paste that link anywhere online,

1:11 uh, social media, your website, whatever it may be. And that's what we often refer to as like the top of the booking engine, so to speak. Another place to get there is right here uh to start online booking. And um basically what'll happen is the first step it'll choose between the services within your account. Um you can add subheaders like this and you're trying to guide the visitor

1:34 to the service package that's going to be a best fit for them and help them evaluate. Um and then they'll go ahead and click and then they might uh click uh the service and then they'll see pricing and so on. the demo account gets kind of junked up here. Um, but they'll see pricing, they can pick a date, and then uh start filling out information. Um, so in this instance, um, what'll happen is,

2:01 um, after this step, uh, you will get a lead basically. And so all the information uh collected after that fact will then in fact um basically become a lead 30 minutes an hour whatever your template is set up to uh check cherry is going to email you with all the information we collect. So, if somebody stops right here, for example, they don't know their date, um we're not going to

2:27 collect a date, obviously. And so, um it's just a great way to um kind of subtly collect leads. And I think that um certainly people will book um on their How many units would you like to book? I guess one. Um people will book on their own. It certainly does have it. I pulled some stats uh from last year and interestingly enough, one second as I pull it up. um

3:03 basically almost 23% of bookings uh two 22.9% of bookings on Czech's platform were fully self-service meaning that they went on and booked themselves and did not require a proposal or any I guess uh you know not so obvious man you know intervention from the uh the event host or the sorry the event service provider. Um and then of the uh leads that were

3:28 you know generated from people who didn't book um you know 5.1% of those converted into bookings and that represents about 6.1% of total bookings in 2024 on Check Cherry. So you know what is that 22.9 plus 6.1 so like you know 29% of the bookings are kind of driven by online booking in Czech. So, a big piece um if you will, but they can choose add-ons and upsell. So,

3:57 some pluses of this side in my mind. One is, you know, from your website. I don't know if we have that still set up, but like um I guess on Forever Events, we have it. This our kind of our new new demo account that gets less junked up. Um you could do things like view packages and pricing, call to actions. I love pricing. Um, and the reason is because everybody's going to

4:22 click it and you basically just link them over to your Czecherry account and start the it's kind of a salesunnel, start the collection process, that type of thing. Um, so that's online booking. Um, super popular with Check Cherry. Um, it does require you package your services, um, have add-ons and, uh, display pricing publicly. Um, so for some service providers, they don't like

4:45 to show pricing. Um and others um just want uh more um how do I say uh kind of more they want to talk to people right and get more information. So um you know it if it gives people the opportunity to evaluate I think it maximizes the website from a you know helps weed out uh people who can't afford you that's a plus side. Um so if you want fewer leads but higher conversions you know

5:12 that that's you know that's something to consider. Um, and probably less haggling because you're putting pricing online. Um, so some some things with online booking that are like some downsides. I mean, again, you know, if you have a website and nobody's generating, you know, an online booking, you're not getting any leads, you're not getting feedback. Um, you know, so that's I guess one

5:31 downside and and you didn't got to put pricing out there. I think it's probably one of my other things. I've also had people, we had a comment on one of the Instagram uh posts we did recently and they really felt like um unless they talked to somebody, they weren't going to be able to convey the value that they provided um and demand and the rates that they demand. It's an interesting

5:54 concept and and my first thought is um it sounds like that would be a good uh kind of good call to action to um level up your online presence because most people won't reach out. You know, you're maybe if you can level up your website that people really do feel like you're worth it. I mean, I think that would be a good challenge. Um something to consider. Um anybody got comments or questions?

6:16 Does anybody use online booking? Love it, hate it. Um feel free to chime in. Raise your hand. I'm looking for my uh people. Leave a comment. All right, we got one. Audi, go ahead. Yeah, unmute yourself. Go ahead and chat. Uh I've tried both. Uh and in all honesty, uh sometimes like maybe one one out of 10 if not one of 20 whereby they actually really bookie themselves. I'm

6:50 experimenting with another route right now which is something similar but not showing them not necessarily not showing them the price immediately but the goal is like they fill the form because I feel like it's good to just have that because you can still always reach out back on like when they see the price and they just disappear you know so now the way I have it is like they fill

7:13 the form then immediately they receive like some automation whereby okay they'll they'll be able to go to my catalog, which is the page, and they can see it. I've not converted any from it yet. Maybe because I have less leads coming in generally. So, I know I'm working on getting my leads to what it used to be, but it's it's it's really hard until they speak to someone. And I feel like people some

7:39 people might buy but mostly people want to feel connection or feel like you know lead them before they they move forward with you. That's just my opinion. Yeah. No and I think that that's uh not uncommon uh feeling. Now are you happy with your online presence? Do you feel like your online presence represents your business well? Uh is it professional? like if I came to your website,

8:02 would I feel like I trusted you and you know? Yes, I believe so because it's pretty like clean. I'm like right there when you search on Google. Uh I have good like SEO in place and is everything is pretty straightforward. I literally actually have my price on my site. They just don't like they just have to go there, you know, but like but I still give them the room because

8:27 before I just have everything there and nobody just reach out. So now I still have it somewhere there whereby they can see it if they like someone going through it but most cases they fill out the form and I have like an automation piece in place most especially if you're trying to tackle the two different market whether having two different websites like because the

8:49 prices I give corporates is different from what I give regular body because of their demand is just totally different. I have like some corporate that I've been talking for over three, four months for an event and I'm just like h I think I'm just going to move forward but at the same time I know that's the way it is. So and I want to charge you collect the lead and send them

9:10 an online booking link. Is that am I hearing that right? Uh so collecting a lead and then sending them sales material. So for at least for 3 four years that I've checked cherry I just I converted to proposal but as this week or last Saturday I start like trying to just send them online booking again to see what will be different like but most cases I just convert it to proposal

9:38 if you want it you know I still try to talk to them but if they don't pick up I just convert it send it to them go through the five automation like and sometimes most times they close that in my own opinion then collect the lead sell it send convert it to proposal kick it out. Yeah. And and you're say when the one out of 10 you said one out of 10 or one out one out of 20 is that from that's

10:02 a so that's a 5 to 10% conversion rate. Is that through this collect lead to convert to proposal? No. No. True online booking like one out of 20ish. Yeah. And like I just it was I just stopped doing it. Yeah. And I think uh what I would say is I think that that's a decent conversion rate actually. Um I wouldn't think that you would I would think 10 10% would be fantastic. Um you

10:25 know and I would say it also depends on your lead sources, right? So if all those people came from personal referrals from friends, I mean obviously that's going to be a higher conversion rate. If they're all coming in cold from online ads, that's going to push down your conversion rate. Um you know, we see that at Check Jerry when we do ads. the conversion rate for paid is different

10:45 than not un nonpaid or refer a friend. Um that type of stuff, but I think 5%'s actually good. So, high five on that. I mean, I would say that that's um in my mind a good number. But, um well, keep it, you know, keep me in the loop. I'm curious to see. I love it when people experiment um with stuff. So, that's awesome. Yeah. And so um we also have an online booking

11:09 with a review kind of an RFP process. Uh not everybody knows about this feature. Um but the way it works is you go to uh manage oops basically under your package manager. I want to say it's under the service. I forget where we put settings here. Um, things over time have just gotten down to the

11:43 package level because of customer feedback. I think we have it under maybe advanced. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you go to a package, there's what we call online booking mode. Um, and maybe that should be renamed just a booking mode or something like that. But there's also this concept of a request for proposal. And really what that'll do, excuse me, is you'll use the regular booking engine um

12:04 the online booking engine and they'll go through um you know, pick their package, fill out all their information, fill out everything, but the last step does not let them pay a deposit and sign the contract. they basically just submit and then that will then send you an email that says hey basically generates a proposal um automatically and then um that will then

12:31 in turn I don't know if I have a request uh um I don't think I have any in here um it'll basically give you an option to basically approve it and then kick it out to the customer and so reason so why would somebody do that um in short they they might like the they're okay with showing pricing um and maybe they're particular about who they do business with or

13:04 maybe they have um you know they want to find this right kind of talk to somebody to get a right fit or um I've seen people that don't want to go uh you know they don't know that their staffing is not you know reliable so to speak so they want to talk to somebody make sure they can staff it before they send it out. Um, and so that's another thing. Um, I've had people where they basically

13:26 customers kind of need to pass around a proposal, so to speak, and so they might do that for like a corporate or something like that. Um, you know, and it's a balance, right? I mean, I think that that's, you know, something where they can kind of get online booking. There's some automation and there's um, you know, an option for them to send you a proposal, but then they you're

13:49 not committed to provide the service. Um, I, you know, I think that I I would challenge businesses that are doing that to try to get to a position. I mean, if you're right there at the point of sale and they can pay money and sign, you know, you're kind of putting another step in there and that might hurt your sales. Uh, would be one thought, but there are some

14:06 legitimate reasons. Does anybody use that? I'd be kind of curious um to hear. I can't. Let me see if I can't find the uh chat. Oh, here's Cam. Okay, here's people in here. Um so, somebody says, "Just add the calendar calendar option." Christina, love it. I I'll keep this up. Somehow that disappeared on me with Zoom. Um my biggest booking to date was Touchless Client book. Just verified and shifted

14:34 some items around. It was priceless. Awesome. Love hearing that. Um, is implementation easy? Somebody I'd like to fully automate with the button that says talk to real person as an additional option. Um, and so Eric on the talk to another person as an additional option. Um, really what'll happen is if they don't complete it, you'll get a lead and you can automate uh a touch to say, "Hey, do

14:54 you want to have a call?" Um, you could call them manually. Uh, you could text them. Um, it's really easy to implement. you just grab the link and you can paste it online uh with the call to action button, that type of thing. Um, another person still spoke to the client, just didn't have to speak about numbers, what they already selected. Cut cut cut the call in half. Yeah. And that's

15:14 another thing about online booking, I think, is um one, you know, some people they don't want the conversation to be about price. Um, and so they think that if they are if they show price, it's only going to be about price and that's all that people are thinking. Um, I'm not I'm not sold on that per se. Um, but I I will say this. If you withhold pricing and require a phone call to get

15:35 pricing, all the conversation's going to be about price. I mean, because I think the other person is going to say, "Hey, like, can I afford you? Like, what's what do you what do you got?" Um, that type of thing. Um, Eric, I get organic business, but I'd like to sometimes just send people to choose whatever they want. Yeah. Yep. You can do that. So, you you can have kind of hidden

15:57 packages, so to speak. And again, chat with us if you ever have questions on Check Cherry. There's a little icon in the bottom right. Um, yeah. Um, okay. I'm throwing feature requests in there. I know asked before, but if statements or lead in the booking process to make the experience where they are answering questions the package is built around rather than online shopping. So, um, it's

16:18 not common. Um, I could see it happening. It's within the scope, but I mean it's not something we're getting. I think you're the only one asking for that specific one. um which isn't you know um not say it won't come but yeah I don't know when um can you do both a proposal request and then they can come back to you later and book um so Eric I mean I think you know Eric have you

16:40 set up a welcome call by any chance and you got a lot of questions great questions in here um I would say you probably wouldn't do both because you can either offer online booking and when they don't complete you get the lead and you take it from there or you offer the proposal request and then they go through and can't commit. Um, and then you send them a proposal. Um, Jefferson's

16:58 our niche is a University Greek system. The majority of our clients book more than three or four events each semester. Just setting up check. Our plan is to get a lead first and first booking. Get a lead for the first booking. We will set them a first booking and send them a link to book future bookings themselves. Okay, that's cool. And Jefferson, do you do that? Because uh why not just

17:20 let them book all the time? I mean, is that do you need to get a contract signed? Is it, you know, you verifying stuff with them? Whatever. You know, Cam still loves us. Thank you, Cam. Yeah, Er, do a welcome call. Um, oh, you did. Yeah. And, uh, you know, feel free to schedule or chat with us, you know, and say, "Hey, I still have some questions." Or just chat with the questions. Start there.

17:40 Um, yeah. And, you know, you can, like I said, you can chat from within your account anytime. We have, uh, great support. Sam's doing most of it right now, and she's awesome. Um, but Matt and I are still on chat. We still monitor things, all that stuff. Yeah. So, um, feel free to and there's a ton of videos, by the way. Um, so the request for proposal, I mean, it's a it's a great

18:00 option. Um, you know, and it's in my mind it's, um, yeah, DJ Ken loves Sam. She is really helpful. Um, let's keep on moving to these sales flows. So, um, you can also collect a lead. Oh, no. Online booking with contact forms. So, um, one thing, okay, one second here. Jefferson says, "We like to keep it somewhat uh somewhat out of the hands so that everything is not automated

18:25 from the beginning." Yeah. Um sure. You know, I mean, I think that that's you know, you can give that you give that a shot. Um Yeah. Okay. So, moving on to online booking with contact forms. So, um sometimes it'll happen. And let's see if we have an example in here. I think I think this uh one of these is Yeah, there's a corporate one. Let's see if this one has it. Uh, no. So, back

18:49 to the packages. Uh, manage packages. There is um we'll call this corporate silver package. Let's make the corporate silver package. Under advanced, display a lead form. And then I can pick which lead form in Check Cherry um I want to use. And so there's a corporate interest. So, let's save that. So, this is the corporate um silver package under DJ. So, then DJ corporate and you'll see there's

19:20 no pricing. It's just kind of like pick your date and then this will come through and pull in a lead form. And so, what I like about this option is it allows you to offer that one link that you paste anywhere to get people to book. And then when somebody chooses corporate, they basically then are going to become a lead. you're going to have a call with them, a text exchange, whatever it

19:46 is, and then uh take it from there and send them their uh their their uh their proposal, I guess, is what would happen. So, that's really something uh that I think is cool. Um I don't know that I would use it for all of my packages. Um I think I would just have a contact form on my website that says, "Hey, tell me about it. Maybe you could have uh you know, some other things." And we'll we'll

20:08 we'll cover that later. But that's a really cool uh feature often over overlooked. So, um, we got a question here. Is there a way to lock the add-ons so that the client cannot remove them from a proposal? Yep. And if you ever have questions like this, just chat with us. U, but under um, I think it's under business settings, availability, change policy, I want to say right here. Should customers

20:31 be able to add and remove add-ons? basically. Um, and then should they remove be able to choose their backdrop before accepting a proposal? So, those two are options. You can set that to no and they can't control it. It is what it is when you send the proposal. Um, there's also a setting on a package and we've covered this before where under manage packages you can include add-ons.

20:53 So, with a package, so um, is that also under advanced? Yeah, add-ons. So, you can include an add-on. you could say don't include at no charge and no they can't remove it. So that's another option and that would be when the package is uh basically booked. So um but like I say, yeah, chat with us any anytime you have questions, don't you know, just chat. We'll get back to you

21:18 when we can. Even if it says we're not around, uh we're constantly chipping away at the uh the uh thing. So you can we change add-ons to be something like enhancements? Nope, it's not. You can't. It's just add-ons at the moment. Yeah. Um, okay. So, then back to my workflows, online booking with contact forms. So, those three, online booking, online booking, the RFP, and

21:43 then the contact forms. And again, those are all kind of under the package settings, uh, under advanced. There are three options right there. Um, kind of booking modes, so to speak. So, um, those are great. They're customer-led. Now you can also uh collect a lead and then send an online booking link. I thought that uh somebody was doing that. And this is cool. So under check cherry we have

22:06 the lead forms. Um easiest way to get their sales leads um lead settings and you can create multiple lead forms and when lead comes in it'll kind of show you what there's also controls over here for um some like sources and events and all that. You can also ask question custom questions on this and there's a more in-depth webinar um on collecting customer data in checker where

22:32 we cover that. Um the so one of the reasons that we broke the online booking process up into multiple steps is generally speaking when you present somebody with a long form it really hurts your conversion rates. Um it just seems like a lot of work. I mean I don't know if you if you even just notice how you are online it's like nobody has attention or patience you know. So, if you

22:53 present somebody with a lot of required fields, um, you know, expect less people to fill it out. Um, that being said, you can make them optional and, um, stuff like that. But the lead forms are great. And one cool thing about the lead forms is um, after a lead is submitted, you can basically there's some options. So, I can display a message. I can save and

23:18 redirect to the booking page automatically. Um, and I can save and redirect to a URL. But the one we're talking about, you would save and redirect to the booking page automatically, which is, you know, this online booking page right here. And so, you would embed this form on your website. I mean, I'll grab a link to it. Um, oops. Nope. Uh, lead forms. So, let's say here's

23:42 like the corporate interest one. I want the link only. Copy the link, you know. So, you could link to it or you can embed this, you know, and they can fill it out. And then after they fill it out, an email will automatically or say so sorry, they'll automatically be redirected uh to your online booking page. And so what's good about that? Um you get the lead for sure

24:01 right before you send them an online booking. So that can be helpful if you're doing um kind of some lead follow-ups um if you want more leads uh you know that haven't seen pricing um and you give them option about themselves later so you can follow up with them, that type of thing. Um if you if you're doing like I've seen people do uh kind of like more in-depth uh kind of lead

24:23 nurturing type stuff. So that can be really helpful. Um Liz says I just removed the lead form and added the calendar view because I received feedback that it was asking too much. Right. Yeah. And Liz, keep in mind I agree and I think that um if I was doing this I would just really keep it to you know like I I personally I wouldn't do estimated budget. I don't think

24:47 you're going to get a really answer. I mean, you probably need the event date. You probably need this other stuff. And anything else you want to tell us? Sure. But I would probably drop I mean that Yeah, I think um it's just it's I think what happens is when we're on the side of managing the business, we get leads that are like they don't have all

25:04 the information we want and we're like, man, if they would just fill out everything, you know, my life would be easier, you know, and but that's going to come at a cost, right? And um I think that if you put your sales hat on, you're like, "Nope, let's just get what we need and maximize those leads, you know, and uh go from there." But yeah, you can you can redirect them. Again,

25:23 that setting is um after they fill it out. Um edit right here. Save and redirect to the booking page. And you could do a custom URL, too. Some people do like a thank you page or whatever it is. Um, but I think the, you know, the best, you know, the best thing to do is to, uh, if you're doing the online booking, yeah, just send them the online booking after after

25:49 you collect the lead. Um, and usually people, I've seen people, they probably more likely to doing like a thank you page where there's some conversion data on there. Um, or, you know, tracking pixels so they can convert. Um, Liz, I'm curious who gave you the feedback that it was asking too much. Was it a client? Was it a consultant or a bride? Yeah. Yeah, it's just a

26:08 lot. It's more and you know they're already doing a lot of work and I think that you know if you just one of the things at Check Cherry that we're huge fans on is just if you make things easy for your clients sales increase you know if you make the sales process easy it increases um so it's really important to us. Um let's keep on going. So that's collecting a lead going on booking link.

26:33 What push the limits was when I asked it was out outdoor or indoor. Interesting. Yeah. And I know and I I guess that's important, right? Um Liz, did she not know that? That's another thing is like sometimes people won't know for sure if it's outdoor indoor. I mean, I don't know. And I guess people don't understand why that's important, you know. Bill's unnecessary. Yeah. Um Oh my goodness.

26:56 She called and yelled me out. Oh my goodness. Well, I mean, yeah, that's interesting. Um, I would say you're you're winning by having less information probably, you know, overall. And if something's really important, just send an automated me automated message say, "Hey, you know, is the is it indoor, outdoor, you know?" Yeah. Okay. So, then another one, um,

27:20 I know, you know, another thing. So, by the way, we set up a Discord, um, and it's been pretty quiet. It's only been 5 days or something like that. But if you guys ever want to connect with other Check Cherry users and you like Discord, um you know, feel free to hop in there. It's new. We we we did it because Facebook groups is rather limited. Um in terms of like the sidebars we

27:42 can do and all that stuff. So um you know, I could see, you know, other different types of sidebars. If you have feedback, of course, let us know. Um so Liz mentioned the calendar widget. So the availability widget that goes to online booking and let's show you that. So under manage uh website integration we have the booking availability calendar. And I'm going to

28:08 grab the link only because it's just it's just easier to see. But basically you embed this in your website and somebody comes and then they say, "Okay, I'm getting married on the 18th. Give me my package. You know, let's book." and then kind of go from there. Um, and so, uh, this is also this will leverage the online booking engine. Really, in my mind, what it's doing is it's the compelling

28:32 piece here is it's kind of starting with this like element of like scarcity, like, oh, are we available? You better check now. And it's also a pretty low uh, call to action, right? To say, hey, look, I mean, I just I'm just going to see if they're available, you know, let me get them my date. That type of thing. Um, and so I like that. Um, I think that most people showing

28:54 up to evaluate a service provider are thinking about can I afford it and what's included. I think that's kind of the top question and then they think availability. I don't have data on that actually in terms of we never done a study or anything. I just think that's generally what people are thinking. Uh, but it can be effective call to action. Yeah. [clears throat] And

29:15 so Liz, how is it working with you? the uh the availability widget are you and then why did you do that and instead of uh just the regular online booking link you know check view packages you just changed yesterday cool um so that's that one availability widget and again these are all kind of more customer-led you know they're really you're really relying on that online booking

29:37 engine for them to pick and choose uh what it is they want um and you this all requires that you have your packages and add-ons pretty dialed in. I also want to remind everybody that just because somebody wants something different than what your prepackaged, you know, offering is doesn't mean that you can't they can't see that as a starting point and then you have a conversation

29:57 later. I don't I think it's completely reasonable that you would reach out to somebody uh who has packages on their website and tell them, "Hey, I want something a little different." And most of us would uh accommodate. Um which that gets us into the vendor uh a little bit more manual. Um, and so you can collect leads and then convert it to a proposal and then send the proposal. And

30:17 so this is a very popular option as well. Um, I'd say online booking and collect lead and convert to proposal. Very, very popular. And so again, you're going to use your lead forms. Um, you know, and let's just say like a wedding or I don't know, basic form. Let's see what this is. Um, you'll use a lead form. You could link to it and send link to it on your check your account or you

30:44 can embed it. Um, put your information again, keep it minimal. Um, and then basically set up a call. Um, you know, that would be one thing or just you could have a really I guess I guess what so Matt put this together. I think really what this is is you're collecting a lot of information and just converting it to a proposal. So you've got like a really big form. Um, you know, let's

31:04 see here what this is. That gives you everything, you know what I mean, that you pretty much need. Then you just kick over a proposal. Yeah. Yeah. See, there's a lot of required fields on this one. And so, they're going to fill all that out. You're going to get it. You'll convert it to a proposal, put pricing on it. Maybe you'll reach out and ask questions and clarify. Maybe not. And then, uh,

31:28 and then send them a link to a proposal. Um, and so that's certainly an option. One thing I like about the proposal is it just puts an offer right on somebody's lap. I mean, that's pretty cool, right? It's just like, hey, just accept or not. Like, it just kind of like, you know, make a decision. It really forces it. Um, so that's a good option. Um, I think with the uh

31:46 the request for proposals. Okay. And then we'll keep on going. You collect a lead, you send sales materials, and then uh send a proposal. And so this has an extra step in it. Um, I think this tends to be um something whereby, you know, um, let's say you're responding to like an RFP that, you know, a lot of people will be pushing in, you know, corporate, you know, corporate event

32:15 or a trade show event or something and you really need a pitch. You might kind of do a combination of this. Basically, this send sales material will be so you can um, collect a lead and then what you can do is you can send them uh an automated email. You can include attachments. Now, um you could send them to a web page on your website that shows, you know, how awesome you are, that type

32:38 of thing. Um, something that will come with Check Cherry is we're going to um beef up proposals and we're kind of going through several iterations on uh proposals to give you guys an ability to kind of include more sales materials because one of the things we've noticed is people will send off proposals without really talking to the customer that much. Um, and I think Chicker's proposals

33:03 right now are great at closing deals when you've, you know, basically the person's agreed or you know, you know what they want. Uh, and they know who you are, that type of thing. But it doesn't really present the company that much. There's not an about or lots of room for, uh, you know, samples of work, that type of thing. So, expect something like that to come. Um, but yeah,

33:21 collect the lead, then send the proposal. Um, another one that's kind of newish now that we have an appointments feature is collect a lead, schedule an appointment, uh, and then proposal. And so, um, you could also, so you, you know, you get your email address. Again, this is all, let me show you how this would work. You know, you I would probably have more of the basic info, just

33:43 not, not so much. And then, um, under there's an appointment scheduling thing and, uh, you can get a link to your it's kind of like Clyish, right? where they can pick a time to schedule an appointment. And so I could just copy this link right here and say, "Hey." And then, you know, in an automated message, um, you know, say, "Hey, um, schedule an appointment." Um, Eric, yes,

34:16 you can use Squarespace. You can embed and uh, link over. Yep. Um, so let's say, uh, you had a lead, you know, what is this? Uh, contact form submission. Let's just imagine this was it. And it was just kind of like, hey, you know, uh, set up an appointment, you know, set up a time to meet here, you know, uh, time to sorry

34:47 and um, grab the link, put that in there or something like that, right? Um, thanks for the interest. By the way, another tip that I would say is in general, like, you know, if you want somebody to act, keep it short. Keep it up to the top of the email. I mean, I don't even know this short. Um, but keep it short. Keep whatever the call to action is higher. Um, and if

35:11 you see that people aren't responding, you might want to, you know, explain to them, you know, why is important. Just give them a, you know, three three reasons why you like to meet, um, what you'll cover or something like that. Um, but that can schedule an appointment. And then from there you you know over Zoom maybe um you know you have a conversation, you establish that rapport.

35:31 You find out everything you need to know about them and their wedding and um all that stuff and you say, "Okay, guess what? I'm going to send over a proposal." Um you know, and then you go ahead and kick that out. So lead appointment proposal. That's also uh kind of a newer workflow. Um has anybody used the appointments feature? How's it going? I'd be interested in that. Um you know,

35:51 feel free to chime in. And then uh Audi says good. Okay, great. Um and then are you using the Zoom integration by any chance and I think people want a uh Google Meet integration too. So I think sorry not yet. So like I tried to do the Zoom the other day [clears throat] because I just started using it. Uh but like I just I need to take a look at it one more time. probably I'll have to like pay for

36:21 Zoom or something. But right now, the way I have it is I just have it under like my signature like, hey, you lost, give me a call, book an appointment. And I like it because I've been using that for over a year, but with Calendarly, but the problem is they have to fill out a whole new form, but now it just populate everything. It makes keeps everything in one little literally just

36:44 started using it last week. So, love it. It's good. Cool. Yeah, DJ Cam says, "Cam says we use appointments for connecting with people or letting them know you're connecting and have real real and oh having internal meetings." Yeah, cool. So that's great. Yeah, the internal meetings. I forget about that stuff that you guys got teams and do internal meetings. That's awesome. Um

37:01 expect more stuff with the appointments. We think it's really cool. Um you know, and more calendar connections, you know, just we think appointments are cool. Um and then you can also schedule an appointment directly and then uh proposal. So, this would be on your website, you know, you would basically um you would have like schedule an appointment and then you would just

37:24 link over to that thing or um I'm pretty sure you can embed it. Actually, not 100% sure. See? Yeah, you can embed it. Uh put inuler right there. So, you just grab it, embed on the website. There's the HTML and Eric. Yep. All that stuff works with um basically every um website builder out there. Um if you run into an issue for whatever reason,

37:55 um one thing to do is try try compatibility mode. Um but basically, you know, chat with us. Yeah, we're we're here to help you. Yeah. So, and I could see, you know, if uh so some of the downsides of the of the uh appointment first approach is not only are you just asking for personal information, you're basically also saying like I need, you know,

38:18 whatever time and you imagine, at least I would think, I'm at least in for 15 minutes minimum, 30, maybe even an hour. I don't know. Is it a sales call? You know, that type of thing. um I haven't seen pricing and packaging, you know, all that stuff. So, um it's more of a it's a higher commitment, I guess, from your leads. You know, you're asking for something a little bit more. Um

38:42 and it's interesting because even as I as I think about that, um you know, the idea where back here, you know, it's almost like this is like the lowest and then probably the highest commitment call to action you're going to have on your website. online booking with just pricing, you know, and then all the way through to like, hey, I need we're going to have a meeting, you know,

39:06 and talk about it. Um, but for the right services and the right price point, um, I think certainly if you're uh a higherend and you do complex events and and complex um, you know, services, I think your client might understand that. They might want an appointment, right? So, I think it really just depends um you know, kind of on what your clients are looking for, what are they comfortable with,

39:31 and [clears throat] I love that Liz is testing out some stuff. So, feel free. We've seen that over the years, people will kind of um go back and forth even from the various kind of uh on customer, vendor type stuff. Um I'm not quite sure what drives it. I think, you know, leads start maybe slowing down and you think, hey, let's try something different or whatever it may be. um you

39:56 know, but there's a lot of different options. And I think one thing I think would be cool is if we uh did a better job in the app uh making it easy to kind of implement uh some of these so to speak. And so that's kind of one of the things with this webinar we just share, okay, hey, there's different ways um to go about uh getting information and then and then kicking it out. So,

40:17 um, any chance of, uh, blending proposal features into leads, for example, more traditional CM uh, estimates pricing add-ons at the lead level? Yeah, it's interesting how Check Cherry evolved. And so, um, proposals aren't necessarily a lead thing. Yeah, it's not a traditional CRM. Um, and I think that um, you know, one of the nice things about how the proposal and and booking is

40:43 it basically makes it easy to convert them over and people sign and just it's everything's synced up and um, I I wouldn't expect leads to, you know, I I wouldn't expect Check Cherry to go the route of a more traditional CRM on this area. Um, tell me more why that's important. Um I know sometimes people request like once you convert a lead to a proposal lead it doesn't um

41:08 it's not deleted but it kind of it gets suppressed basically but I'd be curious why that's important you know what you're doing on the business side um you know which makes that a a feature request or worth you know worth uh you know advancing a sales opportunity as it waxes and waines. Um unmute yourself. I'm not cur I'm curious what that means if you want if you're open to talking. Um

41:36 or maybe not. But yeah, so ultimately on my end um we'll have somebody that um has like a specific event, right? And they may want to expand that event. you know, ultimately it's kind of like the ability to go along the pipeline process. Um, there are moments where it'll kind of stay back at more of like a lead. There's not really an opportunity to make a sale, but you can

42:03 still pitch services and give pricing. Um, and so I guess ultimately on my end, it would be nice to have more flexibility within the lead. Are these like corporate uh leads that are like they always have events or something or like Yeah. or frequent flyers where they have multiple events, so groups, communities. Yeah, it's interesting because I I feel like one of the reasons Check Cherry doesn't

42:26 have some of these like life cycle things is that most of the leads that come in are perishable, right? So, after the event date passes, it's worth a lot less, right? It's it's interesting, but but we do have people that um work with planners and other things. So, that's interesting. That's good feedback. I appreciate that. Um, cool. Um, you can convert, you can find leads and convert them back.

42:54 It's kind of a pain. Um, it's certainly not uh we don't have really an elegant way of doing that, but that's good feedback. I appreciate it. Um, yeah. And that so that's about it in terms of if anybody else has feedback or comments or questions, um, feel free to chat. Um, that's kind of the current, uh, state of sales flows. Maybe I missed one. I don't know. Um, but I think that

43:20 um it's worth trying different things and I think importantly listening to customers. So, Liz, uh, high five and listening to the customers and trying it. It's tough when you have one customer that's just kind of a pain. Um, because it could be just noise. Um, but you know, I I I do think that it's worth mentioning it that a lot of asking for more information is not necessarily uh going

43:44 to, you know, be something that is going to help sales overall. It's going to help this, you know, you guys execute and have information. Uh Josh says, "Is there a way to embed online booking into the website?" Currently, no. Um, and kind of historically it just the way that the web works, it kind of makes it difficult for us to do our multi-step. We lose links. Um, there's all kinds

44:07 of other things. Um, we think that maybe there can be like a middle ground where you can like embed packages as a starting point. Um, but embedding everything in there, it just the the way the web works does not work. It just doesn't we lose a lot of other stuff. Um, all that being said, I don't know that clients actually look at URLs or care that much, if that makes sense. So,

44:31 if it's a vanity thing, you know, um, you know, I don't know that clients necessarily notice. If there's something else, I'd be curious, you know, feel free to chat or unmute yourself as to why that's important. Um, but, you know, that's been a feature request that's come up from Check Cherry pretty much from day one. Um, it's just hard for us to um, do it. So, in conversion tracking,

44:52 so we have uh Google Tag Manager integrations. Um we've got uh you can use the Metapixel um and that'll kick out things and so on. Um so if there's something specific, chat with us, let us know. On the lead forms, you can redirect to a um whatchamacallit. But there are [clears throat] I'm sympathetic on the conversion stuff because um you know certainly but like there's the metapixel

45:22 you can put that in um unfort you know I the Google tag manager it's like a good idea and stuff. It just tends to be a little bit harder to implement for our customers. Um and so we probably should add uh I don't know if we have Tik Tok in here. We'll see what happens uh in September with them. Um yeah, and Google Analytics, you can do Yeah, you can do Google Analytics. There's a

45:44 Google Ads one. Josh, I'm assuming you mainly do Google Ads would be my guess. I think that's what most of our customers do. Um but if you put that in there, you can, you know, basically paste the code um the HTML tag and then uh and we even have it to where you can customize it by the brand, uh these days. So chat with us. Yeah. Yeah. Google Ads. Yeah. Yeah. And it would be like

46:09 honest like magic wand like Yeah. I mean I would think it would be awesome if it was embedded in the website and just super easy and you know just pop this in there and it just works. But it just we lose other stuff basically with the iframes and all that stuff. So um you know maybe at some point who knows we'll see where everything goes. I mean uh we use Stripe and they have some embedded

46:30 components which have worked out pretty well. Um, but it's, you know, I don't know that it's all uh Nicholas says, "I saw you can handle, you can include add-ons at no charge with a package. Could do the same with backdrops." So, no, you can't uh at the moment. Um, and I think that would be cool. Uh we're working on some other uh changes around add-ons and you know it's kind of we're rethinking

46:54 how uh we do some things uh at Check Cherry and so um I could see that kind of coming into the fold and so you can uh Nicholas are you um is it something where the add-on itself like one add-on is included or they can choose from among a bunch of add-ons at no extra charge? is that kind of which one is it? Because the way that the way that the add-ons work, it's like you pick an an

47:24 add-on. So, I mean, you could add a backdrop before you send a proposal, for example. Um, but um on a on a package under advanced, yeah, you can kind of include stuff, but it's like it doesn't allow them to choose. Now, if you want to include backdrops at no charge for some packages, we do have a settings. you haven't commented, so I'm not quite sure, but I'll show you that anyway.

47:48 Under backdrops, um, each backdrop you can say include at no charge with certain packages. Okay, that that's what I was kind of looking for. So, okay, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's exactly trying to figure out, but it won't be um they won't be able to choose though. It have to Yeah, they can choose then. So, what'll happen is in when they go to pick a backdrop, if it's

48:11 visible for the package, you know, and they pick uh call it the platinum package and a corporate, it's at no charge. Yes. Include it. Yep. And then if not, it's 50 bucks. Yeah. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Yep. That's what I was looking for. Awesome. Cool. Yep. We got it. Yeah. I mean, Check Cherry's gotten to where it's at um with just great feedback over the years from customers.

48:35 Uh so, we really appreciate it. If you ever have feedback, chat with us. Um, we're really open to feedback. We also get a lot of feedback and so we can't implement everything. And some things are um, you know, harder to implement and um, you know, might cause more confusion, so they kind of fall lower. Other things are like, oh wow, it's a no-brainer. How do we not have that? Totally get

48:57 it. Um, and so it just really depends. And then we also want to keep on making Check Cherry kind of smoother. Um, it's weird how or it's weird. It's just interesting how software develops. Like it's kind of got a life of its own. Um and so, you know, things get added and all this stuff, but yeah, Matt Bond says, "The customer service has been awesome." Yeah, thanks. And that's been

49:16 something I mean, Matt and I did the customer service for years. Um and um learned a ton about the business and our clients and all that stuff. And Sam now uh does most of it, but she's the feedback on Sam has overwhelmingly been good. Um, and Matt, like I say, Matt and I, we still chime in. I mean, we're still around and, you know, um, we still provide support and I'll respond on the

49:39 weekend on stuff or after or maybe hop in, you know, whatever it is. Um, but Sam's been great. So, that's awesome. I think it's also something that, um, what I've like what I've learned is, um, you know, great customer service is just a part of great brands and people like doing business with when there's great customer service. So, um, it's important to us and has been from day one. So,

50:03 Tam's asking about fe future features. You're going to tease us on this call. So, um there's going to be a app update. I'm about to cough here. Hold on. I think it's pretty much queued up. So, the iOS and Android apps are getting an update. Um so, expect that to come in the next week or so, I would say. And then we're rethinking how add-ons are working. Um, a common uh feature request is

50:34 this idea where um people want to limit uh the choice. Hey, you only can choose one add-on of this group for example for this booking or hey you I want them to choose three add-ons or something of that nature. So, um, we're rethinking how some of that works and we think that the add-on stuff is important. And then also, I mentioned the proposals and kind of more like salesy,

50:57 uh, components, you know, to Check Cherry to help sell your company, uh, to somebody. And I I think what happens is a lot of times, you know, people are, uh, they're not they're quick to send out a proposal without necessarily uh, talking to the customer. And that could very well be because, you know, back to my uh appointments, you know, first is that people don't want, you know,

51:18 prospects don't necessarily want to burn a half hour, uh, you know, of their time. They just want to see the offers. Um, you know, and that's I think kind of goes back up to the online booking side, of course. Um, but they're sending out the proposals pretty fast and it doesn't really do a good job um, selling who they are, what they can do, that type of stuff. So, but yeah,

51:39 that's I mean that's some stuff you can expect from us. And there's always little stuff that we're doing to improve. Uh, you know, we did a a slight UI change on this um to help make it more clear. And there's been some feedback. You know, of course, existing people tend to get confused when they see something different. Um, but we kind of wanted it to make more sense uh to what's going

52:00 on and reinforce some of the objects that we have in Check Cherry. We'll probably be re renaming mini sessions to sessions because people use it for Santa sessions and corporate head shot and all kinds of different stuff. So that makes sense. But yeah, but things are uh chugging along. Cam, thanks for the questions. I like it. So yeah, again uh oh, any feature for incorporating AI?

52:26 So, uh, we're really interested in AI and, um, I'm I mean, obviously there's probably something we'll do with AI. Um, it's not, you know, Matt and I, we talk about it. We kick it around. Um, it's not immediately clear. It doesn't come up as a feature request from existing customers, believe it or not. Um, I'm really interested in the uh the Agentic AI, you know, where you can kind of

52:50 basically hook up uh, you know, your Check Cherry database to, um, you know, chat GPT or something and then, you know, ask questions like that might be cool. Um, so we'll see. Uh, but nothing nothing uh, in this near term. Um, but we're big fans of AI. We use it. Um, we're impressed in many ways. I mean, AI is really smart, but sometimes it's really dumb. Um, I don't think it'll, you know,

53:15 I don't think we'll ever move to like using AI for chat support, for example. Um, but you know, um, you never know. Um, and we'll see how far it goes. But yeah, and then Matt, what do you want to use AI for? I guess that I'd be kind of curious. Do you have any ideas on what you'd like to see? So, I went pretty deep into the Zapier rabbit hole and um a lot of those automated features

53:42 were pretty great um just across other services and then being able to implement some of our internal processes that are dependent on AI or or writing on AI. Being able to kind of spread those into the check cherry ecosystem um was an exciting idea, but I know that there were some limitations with this. Yeah, I mean like you want to like respond to messages,

54:03 rewrite like rewrite package descriptions. Are you looking to query data and say, "Hey, what are my most popular packages or Well, we're kind of maxing things out on this end. So, like I have my own Check Cherry account. I [clears throat] work with Cam quite a bit. Um, and then we have Beat Hive DJs. So, I'm managing probably three or four different Check Cherry accounts. Oh,

54:24 you are? Wow. And it would be really nice to be able to have like one ring that rules them all, like one check cherry account that I could have everything dump into so that the calendarers are updating so that I could use um the appointment feature without having to plug in other processes basically. So got it. Long story short, we like your product enough we just So yeah, that's cool.

54:51 Yep. Using it to the fullest. Yeah. And we're, you know, you just got to be patient with us. And I think that you, if you guys are more kind of uh power users, you know, I know Sam Cam, you're looking for, you know, the the if else's and, you know, it's been, it's been a journey for us to build the product and just takes time, you know. No, and you you guys have been awesome

55:07 at responding to it and taking her requests and it's been awesome. So, love it. And then Liz says she'd use AI to write email. Um, so that's cool. Yeah. And I think like uh that makes sense, right? Hey, write a response or something of that nature. Um, you know, I think it's interesting. I think that makes sense. Um, and then I don't if Gmail has a AI component or something like that because

55:33 keep in mind, Liz, you can also respond to emails from your Gmail account or whatever whatever email client you like. Um, so Cam, I appreciate the support. Yeah, I'm pushing this. Um, Miguel says, "Currently using uh, Sinister and they pull information from website. It'd be great if they could pull uh, all the data from Czech chariot allows us to automate messages." Yeah. And so,

55:55 um, yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely an opportunity uh, for the AI. We're just kind of we want to develop we're I guess what I would say is if we put something out there, we want it to be good and reliable and helpful, right? And so, um, we're using AI internally to do a lot of different stuff and we like it. Um, and so totally get it. Um, but yeah. Yep. Well, hey guys,

56:21 thanks for coming. Uh, you know, we're about we're about uh over here. I got Here's Jefferson. We're looking forward to implementing guys. Thanks for so much. Hey Jefferson, I appreciate it. Um, yeah, and we'll do another one in two weeks and Matt'll be here. So, I you know, managed it on my own. We got it done. Thanks for all the comments and interaction, guys. that makes it

56:38 uh easier for me. So, I really appreciate it. Have a good night, everybody. Thanks so much. Okay. Good night. Good night. Thanks, J. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys.