We have recently completed a project with the incredible Nance Haxton (also known as The Wandering Journo!) that I would love to share to get your brain thinking about ways of thinking outside the box and doing more with what you already have!

 

Nance has an amazing podcast side to her business where she creates, edits, and shares a variety of series ranging through politics, slices of life and remarkable people. But recently, she is doing more and more work creating podcast episodes for other people and businesses.

 

This side of the business needed an upgrade in the quoting workflow to really showcase Nance and add a bit of oooomph to the message she was putting out to the world.

 

Initially, we looked at using some dedicated proposal software however, with the cost that comes with platforms like these and how inconsistently Nance would need to use it, we made a very quick decision that this wasn’t the right choice for her.

 

So we turned to her current tech stack! Initially we built out a template for her within Canva. It allowed us to play around with design and for a little while, Nance even used this to create her proposals.

 

Then the decision was made to upgrade her workflow and image even more. We wanted somewhere that clients could click on a link, be taken to the proposal, have a chance to ask questions, and accept or decline what was in front of them, BUT without the added cost of another platform.

 

After bouncing around a few more ideas, we let Nance know about the option of creating a custom Quote template within Xero. This ticked all the boxes and allowed us to use what we had already designed within Canva.

 

Now when Nance needs to create a proposal, she can put together all of the information in the quote section of Xero (for those not familiar with doing quotes in Xero, it’s EXACTLY the same as putting together an invoice) before choosing a template (we created a few options for various use cases) and hitting send.

 

Nance can now track outstanding proposals, and very quickly go about issuing invoices from accepted quotes. She has now not only lifted her own image, but is saving time, able to track where everything is at, providing a better, more streamlined experience for her customers, and all from utilising her existing tech.

 

 

So next time you want to revise your workflows or change up the tech, take a look at the tools you are already using. It might be that they have what you are after but you just aren’t aware of it…………yet!