How HoneyBook AI helps this cinematographer save half a day’s work

Learn how Dee Travaughn uses HoneyBook AI tools to save time and streamline his workflow to grow his business to new heights.

Turning a passion into a sustainable career is the ultimate dream. After all, waking up to do what you love everyday while earning a living at the same time is not often associated with full-time work.

But for Dee Travaughn, a Memphis-based cinematographer and HoneyBook member, practicing his passion is how he is paying the bills. He is one of many creatives who’ve taken the leap into independent work, turning his talent for photography and cinematography into a successful small business. 

Dee’s interest in photography began in college. For him, it started casually. “I used to just take photos of my friends and random stuff like food or the sunset for my Instagram,” said Dee. 

“I never really took it seriously until around late 2017, early 2018,” Dee continues, “It was then I really decided to buy a camera and just try to see what I could do.”

What started as a side gig in 2018, eventually expanded into video production, and by 2023, Dee’s business had grown so significantly that he could leave his full-time job to pursue photography and filmmaking as his career.

After almost 2 years serving small businesses, brands, and emerging artists, Dee now faced a new challenge—how to deliver exceptional creative work while managing all the administrative tasks that come with running a growing business.

Here’s his story. 

Managing everything as a team of one

After taking his business full-time, Dee was able to bring on even more work and prioritize growing his business. This newfound focus allowed him to expand his roster of clients and projects. So much so, that he found himself stretched thin. 

“I was tapped out,” said Dee. And it made sense, with the added clientele came more admin work. He was overextended trying to manage all the client communications, project details, and proposals while still having time and mental space for his creative work. 

“I’m not at a point where I can hire an assistant, but I kind of needed an assistant.” 

It was clear that he needed some help but he didn’t have the resources to start building a team. “I’m not at a point where I can hire an assistant, but I kind of needed an assistant,” said Dee.

Without someone to help out, Dee had no other choice but to do everything himself— and it was a huge time suck. 

Client calls, critical to his sales process, resulted in tedious manual work. He was thorough about taking notes to capture every detail, which he’d then painstakingly summarize, craft into a custom proposal, and email to clients after each call—a process that often delayed sending proposals by 48-72 hours. 

This administrative overhead limited his ability to focus on creative work and building his personal brand alongside his client business.

How HoneyBook AI became Dee’s virtual assistant

As a HoneyBook user since 2019, Dee was already familiar with how the platform could support his workflow and client management. He has also always been tech-savvy with a curiosity about how the latest technology—like AI—couldhelp him and his business. “I’ve been surrounded by computers all my life, so I’m comfortable with [technology],” said Dee. “I used ChatGPT when it first came out, so I’ve always been in this world.” 

So, when HoneyBook introduced AI features, he took to it immediately. “I didn’t have any fear going in,” said Dee. “I just decided to try it, and let it do its thing.” 

As it turns out, HoneyBook AI fit the bill for what he needed in an assistant. For his business, Dee found the meeting notetaker and email drafts to be the most helpful tools to tackle the administrative tasks that were draining his time. 

Here’s how. 

Meeting notetaker

The AI-powered meeting notetaker automatically joins Dee’s client calls, and follows up with not only a transcript but also a structured summary of the key discussion points.

“When I got my first notes from the meeting notetaker, it was like, this is it. This is the assistant I never knew I needed,” said Dee. “It laid out everything—the main points of that conversation like the budget, the dates, the client’s ideas and concepts—it was all right there.”

“When I got my first notes from the meeting notetaker, it was like, this is it. This is the assistant I never knew I needed.”

This eliminated the manual notetaking process Dee was previously using. He no longer had to sift through notes and rely on his memory to write proposals. Now, he had every piece of information he needed to quickly and—most importantly—professionally deliver proposals promptly to his clients. 

“With the meeting notetaker I can take a glance and structure my proposal based on just that recap.”

The Meeting Notetaker even works for Dee in unconventional circumstances. In one instance, when a client had issues joining a Zoom call, Dee called the client, and held his phone near his computer microphone during their phone conversation. HoneyBook AI was still able to capture the relevant information, and distinguish between Dee’s voice and the client’s. 

Email drafts 

Instead of manually handling each client conversation as he did before, Dee now leverages HoneyBook’s AI-powered email drafts feature to help him respond to clients quickly. 

“When a client emails me, HoneyBook instantly has suggestions for how to respond to that client,” he explains. 

This results in meaningful time and energy savings for Dee. Now he doesn’t have to worry about crafting the perfect message for each of his clients and leads, HoneyBook AI helps him create a draft instantly—all that’s left for him to do is edit as needed and send. “Sometimes I have to adjust the tone or adjust certain things, but for the most part, it’s already done, and I don’t have to think about it.”

“It’s already done, and I don’t have to think about it” 

This not only makes Dee’s response time significantly faster, but he no longer has to invest mental energy to think about the perfect response each time a client emails. With the email drafts feature, this task is nearly done, Dee just has to take it across the finish line. 

Time saved and mental clarity gained

✔️Half the day saved
✔️Proposals sent an hour after a client call—instead of 72 hours
✔️Increased client capacity
✔️Freed up mental space

The impact of HoneyBook AI on Dee’s business has been nothing short of transformative.

Since using HoneyBook AI, Dee has experienced huge gains in efficiency that have reshaped how he works. Dee estimates with HoneyBook AI, he’s been able to get back “at least half of the day.” He now puts that time towards refining his craft, building his personal brand, and his personal life. 

Even when it comes to specific tasks, like preparing and sending proposals—HoneyBook AI has made a huge difference for Dee in time saved. 

For example, proposals used to take Dee 48-72 hours to prepare. Now he sends them to clients within just one hour after calls with the help of the meeting notetaker summaries. 

And that’s not the only benefit, Dee’s also been able to expand his client capacity even further with the help of the meeting notetaker. “I’m now able to take multiple calls a day and send out proposals,” says Dee. “Normally I wouldn’t be able to do that, but now I can.” 

Beyond the tangible business results, Dee also emphasizes the mental relief HoneyBook AI provides. “It frees up mental space in my head to be able to do other things,” ultimately creating a more sustainable and scalable business that allows Dee to chase his passions—without burning out. 

For other creative entrepreneurs hesitant about incorporating AI into their businesses, Dee’s advice is straightforward: “I would tell them to just do it,” says Dee. “As small business owners, we can only do so much and we have to be present in so many ways. It’s impossible to do it by yourself.”

As Dee continues to build his business and work toward his goals, HoneyBook AI isn’t just a set of tools— it’s become the assistant he needs to succeed as a team of one.

Taking Dee’s business to new heights

Now equipped with the power of HoneyBook AI, Dee sees a clear path forward for his business. 

At the top of the list is reaching his goal revenue. “I was so close last year—my first full year in business to reach this goal,” says Dee. “But this year, I’m on track to reach that goal revenue and hopefully surpass it” 

With that increase in revenue, Dee wants to keep his client roster steady and be more selective with net new clients. “I want the right client,” he emphasizes. “And be more of a partner to my clients and their vision.” 

Increasing his revenue will also enable Dee to build out his personal brand on YouTube to create an additional revenue stream. “My goal is to split time between my personal brand and my business,” says Dee. “I want to build the two up to the point where each venture can substitute the other if needed.” 

Dee believes HoneyBook AI will be instrumental in achieving these goals. And he’s already seeing benefits with one potential high-value client: “HoneyBook AI has been keeping notes of all of our conversations from the start,” says Dee.” With it, I’ve felt fully on track throughout this entire project.” 

With HoneyBook AI handling the administrative heavy lifting, Dee is now positioned to elevate both his client work and personal brand, transforming from a stretched-thin small business owner to a thriving creative entrepreneur ready to reach new heights in his work—and his life.