Since going viral at a young age, Maxwell Bentley always had the talent required to be an independent business owner. But, he didn’t always have the processes and workflows to stay organized and save time–until HoneyBook.
For marketing consultants, working with clients starts with a collaborative process. It’s important to understand the clients’ needs and pain points, and then scope services in a way that’s unique to their requirements.
If this process is relevant to your work, then you also know how overwhelming it can be if your process isn’t organized. Did I already send a proposal to this client? Do I need to set up their invoice? Have they signed the contract yet? These questions can be common, and they often stem from using a variety of different platforms and systems.
For Maxwell Bentley of Bentley Media, that was the main challenge–juggling multiple apps took up too much of his team’s time, which made for a poor client experience. Luckily, using HoneyBook was able to solve his challenge and provide a better booking and onboarding process for his clients.
Explore Maxwell’s process in HoneyBook:
- About Maxwell Bentley and Bentley Media
- His challenge: Juggling multiple apps and providing a confusing client experience
- Getting set up with HoneyBook
- Booking and onboarding clients and team members
- The results: Saving hours each month and providing a better client experience
About Maxwell Bentley and Bentley Media
When Maxwell Bentley was just six years old, he stole a camera from his mom and never gave it back. From then on, he was able to explore the talent and passion that led him to become an independent business owner and video marketer.
Only a handful of years later when he was 13 years old, he started making YouTube videos about the online game platform Roblox, and one of the videos went viral. Roblox noticed his talent at a young age and hired him on as a teenager to write, shoot, and narrate a weekly web show for the company. Essentially, Roblox was Maxwell’s first client.
After college, he realized he needed to start making more money, so he started officially building his video marketing business, Bentley Media. He only had one camera (this time a Christmas present), but it was enough for him to get started and do it all, just like he did when he got his start with Roblox.
Now, Bentley Media services all types of clients, from medium to large enterprises, universities, and non-profits. Maxwell has also been able to hire a team for writing, editing, and filming, and he makes over six figures providing video marketing services to his clients.
His challenge: Juggling multiple apps and providing a confusing client experience
As Bentley Media got started, Maxwell was juggling various apps to book clients and manage projects. He had different systems for invoicing, agreements, scheduling, and more.
At first, clients were receiving five different emails throughout the onboarding process, and sometimes emails were going to spam. With everything coming from different places, it was difficult to know what clients had already received and what was still outstanding.
To make things easier, he started combining the links from all of the different platforms and putting them all in one email. Though this was easier for clients, it took unnecessary time and effort on his end, and it could still require clients to create unique logins for different platforms.
Constantly juggling different platforms was taking up a lot of time, and it was complicated.
Getting set up with HoneyBook
Because of the disjointed process he was using, he knew he needed to find more of an all-in-one platform. Overall, he was looking for:
- All-in-one capabilities
- A system that was easy to use
- A system with few tech issues
After a quick search, he saw HoneyBook and signed up for an account. Immediately, he noticed how user-friendly it was, along with providing all the capabilities he was looking for. He was able to onboard his account by starting to set up projects and files.
The fact that I could put everything into one digital file blew me away. Now, I have full control over what the client needs, and I can customize it easily rather than juggling all these different apps and platforms.
Maxwell’s clientflow inside HoneyBook: Booking and onboarding clients and team members
With HoneyBook, Maxwell can streamline the entire booking and onboarding process with his clients.
Discovery process
Most of Maxwell’s clients come through referrals, after which he schedules a call with them through Calendly.
Pro tip
Though Bentley Media relies on its established process in Calendly, other businesses can take advantage of the HoneyBook meeting scheduler to keep scheduling in the same platform as booking, onboarding, and more.
During the discovery call, Maxwell talks to clients about their needs, then suggests a solution Bentley Media can provide and starts sharing some options and pricing.
Proposal and booking
After the discussion with the client, Maxwell sends a proposal using HoneyBook, which includes sample videos, explainers about his services, his master client agreement, the statement of work, additional policies as needed, and the invoice.
Because HoneyBook enables members to save any files as templates, he saves time by using the same base proposal template, and then customizing it for each client.
Onboarding team members
Along with booking clients, Maxwell also uses HoneyBook to onboard new team members. Bentley Media works with contracted creative partners, and they’ve been able to simplify the entire process of getting them onboarded.
Maxwell uses an onboarding file for new team members that includes a similar workflow to the onboarding process he uses for clients. Within the file, he includes a welcome video tailored to the new hire, a creative partner questionnaire to learn more about them, their independent contractor agreement, and a direct deposit agreement.
He also sends an “Exhibit A” document that he’s also built out in HoneyBook, which acts as an addendum to the consulting agreement that outlines the shoot details for the new hire’s assigned project.
Pro tip
HoneyBook templates make it easy to build repeatable processes just like Maxwell. With the ability to customize each file and include actions, you can create the workflows you need and share with clients or partners in little time.
The results: Saving hours each month and providing a better client experience
Using HoneyBook to create a better booking and onboarding experience saves Bentley Media hours each time they have a new client and ensures they get paid faster.
It used to take us two hours to onboard a new client, and now it takes 15-20 minutes. At scale, we’ll be saving hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of my team’s time.
On the client side, it’s helped simplify their experience and make it easier for them to get started. While he used to get complaints about tech issues when he was using other platforms, he doesn’t hear anything like that anymore. “The fact that they’re not saying anything actually says a lot,” he said.
Looking to the future, Maxwell is focused on growing his revenue, and he knows he needs to further improve his systems and processes. He sees HoneyBook as one of the first steps toward scaling efficiently.
As he continues to use the platform, he’s looking forward to setting up more HoneyBook integrations, such as through Zapier triggers and actions.
HoneyBook has been an all-in-one platform where every feature is really robust and good, and that’s hard to find. It has saved me and my team a lot of time and it has created a very user-friendly experience for my clients. I love it!
Capture leads, sell services, manage projects, and nurture client relationships from one platform. All that and more with HoneyBook.
