Ep. 95: Building the PERFECT Client Experience with Time Blocking

Ever wondered how some design firms can create high-quality websites in just one day? Learn the secrets from web design expert Savannah of Knapsack Creative as she unveils their distinctive time-blocking method designed to deliver efficient and outstanding results. From the initial client contact to the collaborative design day, Savannah walks us through every step of their streamlined process, emphasizing the importance of quick decisions and organized content collection with tools like Content Snare. This episode promises to transform your approach to web design with actionable insights and strategies.

But that's not all—we also dive into the firm’s structured approach to project scheduling and time management. Discover how Savannah and her team allocate specific days for project work, meetings, and internal tasks, ensuring efficiency and clear communication with clients. Plus, explore the various workflow tools like Asana, Dropbox Paper, and Slack that contribute to their seamless project management system. Don't miss out on these valuable tips and more, including a mention of their informative podcast, The Friday Habit, which offers additional strategies for business efficiency.

Chapters

• 0:01 Efficient Website Design Process With Savannah
• 12:51 Effective Time Blocking and Collaboration
• 20:47 Workflow Tools and Collaboration Systems

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey, hey, hey. This is Sarah Noelle Block and you are listening to Tiny Marketing. This is the uncut summer series where you are getting the raw, unfiltered, unedited recordings from our interviews, webinars and workshops. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ridiculousness.

Speaker 1: 0:24

If you've been following me for a while, you know my obsession with building out optimized processes. Well, that obsession got to like a high point. I was at the top of the mountain of obsessing after I worked with savannah on my website. If you haven't been there, you can check out her work at sarahnoelblockcom. Anyway, she had such a beautiful process that I tried to reverse engineer it and I immediately I asked her hey, can you come on my show and explain how you guys rocked my world so hard?

Speaker 1: 1:08

It's hard to rock my world so hard when I'm already obsessed with processes and building beautiful experiences. And they gave that to me in just like the perfect way. So today she's coming on and I am resharing this episode where she explains their time blocking procedure that helps them create entire websites in just a couple of hours. So stay tuned while we talk to Savannah. I was just like trying to reverse engineer how you guys do what you do. Can you tell me how you guys came up with, or first describe the experience that clients go through, and then we can dig into the back, the back end of it.

Speaker 2: 1:57

Yeah, yeah, totally Well. Yeah, like I said, we were a Squarespace website agency. So we build Squarespace websites for our clients and we do it in as little as a day, so it's kind of the big process piece. So we're just very big on process and systems, like I said, and we're trying to create the world's best web design experience. It's kind of our thing that we're just constantly pursuing. So, in terms of the experience and what a client goes through and feel free to chime in, since you went through- it I will, but first we'll meet with somebody to just make sure they're a good fit.

Speaker 2: 2:36

We're really big on making sure that you know somebody is going to align with our process. It's not for everybody because it is pretty fast-paced and you do have to be, you know, a quick decision maker and all of that. We also want to make sure Squarespace is a good fit. But essentially, once they've onboarded into our process, we give them a project map which basically lays out all the steps in the process. So it's really clear they know exactly what to expect and what's happening when with calendar, invites and things on the calendar and really the bulk of the process for the client.

Speaker 2: 3:10

Once they've done their homework, we have a pretty organized intake prep guide. But then essentially we'll have a one hour meeting to review the prep guide. So that's kind of like hey, this is when your homework's due, you're going to meet with your designer over the chat, and so it just creates clarity around a due date and I think for everybody just all humans we need that. So that review session is when we review the prep guide. So basically, just look at all their homework, get on the same page, make sure we have everything we need to complete the process and then about a week later we do what we call the design day. Sometimes there's a couple design days if it's a bigger site, but I think for your site we just did one design day. Is that right, sarah?

Speaker 1: 3:57

Yeah, we did the whole thing in one day.

Speaker 2: 4:07

Boom one day. Um, so, yeah, that's our pretty like that's our most common package, and um, so what that looks like is we actually are building the site throughout the day. We do do some prep work ahead of time. Um, so it's not entirely that day, but we're basically meeting over video chat, screen sharing, um, asking for feedback, and then we're jumping off for a couple hours building the next page, uh, getting feedback, and so it's very collaborative and fast paced.

Speaker 2: 4:28

And so I mentioned it's not for everybody, because if people need like a lot of time to think over their decisions or the shade of blue that we're using or the icons, it's probably not a good fit, because we're all about efficiency. We're like all right, let's show up, get this done, and then by the end of the day, yeah, you have a completed website, we'll launch it, you know when they're ready, and so, yeah, it's very time blocked, it's very efficient and it's very collaborative. We hate the idea of like emailing back and forwards for weeks and weeks and like getting feedback that way. Or else we're like let's get on video chat, let's talk, let's get this done in terms of, you know, making decisions and all that. So that's high level. Yeah, anything that you would add just having gone through it, or anything I missed?

Speaker 1: 5:19

Yes, oh well, I noticed. So we had our, we had our fit call to see if I made sense to work with your agency and how you guys work. And then at the kickoff call, that's when you went over like what homework I would need and we kind of picked out what, what package I would need if we could actually get it done in a day, right, and what is the tool that you used for collecting the content that you need?

Speaker 2: 5:51

Yeah, Content Snare and we've kind of built out like a custom thing in Content Snare, which is an amazing tool, for I mean, it works for lots of different industries. So yeah, contentsnarecom, that's right.

Speaker 1: 6:03

I told so many people about it. After we worked together I was like contentsnare. It's amazing, yeah, pretty powerful, yeah. The other thing that I noticed is like the vast majority of the website was done before our design day, and what we did in like the first call of the day was just go through the details, like where I wanted specific changes, but the vast majority was done Like I don't know, the house was built. It was just like picking paint colors, like that.

Speaker 2: 6:52

Yeah, you gave us a lot to work with. I would say that is contingent on how much like branding elements we have to work with. Sometimes if somebody doesn't have anything, then we're like making more of those decisions in the day, but you had an amazing brand to work with and you're very organized.

Speaker 1: 7:20

So, yes, you are basically able to just you know. Respond to. You know, we could get a lot of work done on hear VIP day. People think that they have to be synchronous and that they're on all day long, but I was able to work all day.

Speaker 2: 7:34

I think we connected twice throughout the day people have asked like do I have to be? Because we actually the calendar invite is like a full time block because we do want people to be available in case I need to meet more times. But usually that happens where people are like yeah, I blocked off the whole day. I thought maybe I would have to be on video chat longer, but like I got a ton of other stuff definitely yeah, well, and it's nice because you're not scheduling other meetings, so you can actually get work done in between working on your website.

Speaker 2: 8:07

Our secret way of proving you.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Yeah, yeah, that was helpful. I was like I'm sorry, I'm busy that day Cannot meet. I want to go backwards in time though, so let's talk from that. So we had the fit call. You were like, okay, I think she can be fast paced and work with us. And then you guys gave me content snare, where I provided copywriting and the examples of the websites I liked and things like that. But the thing that was really cool is that you had mapped out the project, so I knew exactly what to look, what it would look like. So explain that to me. They're not all custom, I'm sure, so you probably have pre-designed workflows that you're working with. How did that work?

Speaker 2: 8:55

Yeah, so it makes it nice because we're web designers, so that's actually a Squarespace website that we built. So we have all the tools and whatnot to essentially create that page. But yeah, it's basically a page where it has like the five steps in the process and then each section just describes the different steps. It's actually really nice because our process doesn't change and so we really are able to use one template to just duplicate for all of our different projects. The only thing that changes is the number of design days, and so for the design day spot in the process, you know, maybe someone would have three different design days and we just write those out in the calendar.

Speaker 2: 9:37

So, yeah, that's basically something we built in Squarespace. We made it branded to our own brand and colors and whatnot. In Squarespace, we made it branded to our own brand and colors and whatnot. And basically our project manager every time we have a project onboarded which is pretty frequently because our turnaround time is pretty quick needed it to be like really easy. She just duplicates a page in Squarespace, plugs in dates and name and customizes it a little bit. Pretty minimal. So I would say like I don't know she would know better, but maybe like 10 minutes of work each time where she's just having to update links and text and whatnot.

Speaker 1: 10:14

That's cool. I'm going to totally steal that idea.

Speaker 2: 10:17

Yeah, you have a Squarespace site.

Speaker 1: 10:20

I do, I do. I kind of take that with when I'm podcast guesting and I'll have a landing page that I just duplicate and change out the certain information I need for that specific podcast. I can track conversion rates from those experiences, but I'm guessing it's similar. Does it live on your website or do you have a separate domain? I can't remember what the domain was for that anymore.

Speaker 2: 10:52

It's mapnapstackcreativecom, so it's a separate Squarespace site. The reason we did that if you're only going to have like a dozen of them or so a year that need to be active, it could live on your existing site. However, we have like hundreds over the last few years, yeah, and we like to them just in case, like a client wants to reference their training video link from the past project or whatever, and so, because we have so many, we just decided to create a separate site. So, yeah, it is a separate. Keep it clean. Yeah, we already have way too many pages in our existing site.

Speaker 1: 11:26

So, yeah, that would be insane. Hundreds of of pages on your website, bah yeah. Do you keep them private, then, so they're not searchable?

Speaker 2: 11:41

yeah, they're not searchable, um, Like even the subdomain. If you go there like there's not even yeah, it's none of it can be found or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Yeah, that makes sense. It's private, personalized for the company that you're working with. Now you mentioned time blocking, so how does that work when you are front loading and doing parts of the website ahead of time?

Speaker 2: 12:10

Yeah. So I mean I can first just share like how we time block the projects, because that might be useful, and then kind of get into like how we actually break up the pieces of work without being helpful. Yeah, that's perfect to scope out the work so we can kind of predict okay, this package needs this amount of time and we have a scoping tool and a very predictable set of processes, you know. So we have a checklist that we go through every single time and that process doesn't change. Of course there's variables and challenges and things that you need to time manage. But the nice thing so our calendar is pretty rigid, where Tuesdays and Thursdays are our project days and so, no matter what those are, when design days get booked, I don't think we've ever had in like 11, 12 years a Monday or Wednesday project, which is just so funny. And then Monday and Wednesdays are our meeting days and then Fridays are strictly internal days, so we actually don't do any client work. So you can look at the month of March and say, okay, all these Tuesdays and Thursdays are available slots for these different designers, we know when people are off and all of that, and then essentially it's really easy to schedule and book and whatnot, because our day pack package is one design day. So our project manager knows, okay, you know March 5th is going to be for this person and so, anyways, there's just a lot of predictability when you get into time blocking, because it is pretty rigid and systematic, if you will.

Speaker 2: 13:50

But then, in terms of how we break it up, it really is our process and our checklist.

Speaker 2: 13:55

I mean it would be overwhelming to show if you won the checklist, because there's just a lot of different steps but it's all broken up in the process. So the designer knows, okay, what do I need to do before my review session? And so there's some prep work for the site and even that is time blocked. So you have two hours before your review session. So there's literally a three hour block. So the designer preps for two hours and then they meet with the client for one hour and then the prep time is time blocked. So that's about four hours. Sometimes we only need one or two hours, but there's at least four hours on the day before the design day, which is a Monday or Wednesday, and then there's, you know, the seven, eight hour block during the design day. So literally everything has a timestamp. And again, I think because of our scoping tool, there are times where we under quote and I always feel really bad about it, or like which package they would choose.

Speaker 2: 14:54

There are times where we underquote and I always feel really bad about it, or Like which package they would choose, just like oh, this one probably could have used more time, so yeah, on which package? But the designer has like buffer time, so that's the other.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Yeah, so you feel bad because you are the person who is deciding the time frame. I get it now.

Speaker 2: 15:25

Sorry that was my bad, but I think a big part of time blocking is creating buffer, because you need margin for error. So we say Fridays are only for internal time. However, they're also a really nice buffer day if, for some reason, like a designer needs a couple extra hours. So that's kind of how it all happens on the calendar. Really, everything is just pre-scheduled and you know, our designers are very trained in our process and so super predictable for them, like they can look weeks ahead in advance and know all right, these two hours I'm prepping for my review session. This day I'm doing a design day. This day I'm prepping, so there's basically just time blocks throughout the process and so we're able to get that work done. You know, the day before the design day and kind of come, like you said, with some more stuff to show, and so it makes the design day less stressful, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Yeah, so okay, I'm going to reiterate for listeners. So four hours before the design day they have time to like prepare the the skeleton site. We'll say prepare the skeleton site. We'll say or a first draft site. And then they have the review day and they have a two-hour time block before the call starts and that's for just going through their checklist.

Speaker 1: 16:46

They have the items that they need to go through and then they have the review call, and then they have the review call and then they have eight to nine hours during the day to do any of the revisions or design work that they have to do based off of the review call, and then you have a wrap-up call right At the end of the day. There is not a wrap-up call.

Speaker 2: 17:08

Or yes, during the design day. Yeah, that would be within like the eight or so hour day.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Yeah, there would be a wrap-up call. Yeah, so the wrap-up call I'm remembering back to my experience happened towards it was like in the afternoon, after we had squared everything away and you're like any changes, I'm like no, and then we would hit publish. So that's how that would happen. So if that wrap-up call in the afternoon, they're like I have major changes, actually, what would you do then?

Speaker 2: 17:41

That's a great question. I get asked that pretty frequently. We ideally have some different like you know what do you call them? Fail? Stops before that. You know what do you call them? Fail, stops before that.

Speaker 2: 17:57

Like, in other words, conversations that we're already having where we feel like we're really on the same page and we're constantly checking in. We're really big on clear communication like hey, how are you feeling about things? Is this heading in the right direction? We I mean, I can't think of a time probably been like one time that I can think of where it just this didn't happen.

Speaker 2: 18:16

But it's very rare that we're not on the same page and heading in the right direction in terms of the overall style and because we're having those little meetings throughout and showing progress, we're not going to get so far ahead with a design or a style that the client's like whoa, this was not what I was expecting at all. If, for some reason, a client is like I'm just having second thoughts, like I, instead of this illustrated style, I actually want to use all photos, they usually know that that's kind of like on them and that it was like something that. Okay, you know we are going to need to book more time, so really like to. The short answer is that we would just book more time, but I'm. The caveat is that it's pretty rare that we get to the end of the day and they're like this isn't what I wanted, because we've been collaborating for hours and hours.

Speaker 1: 19:11

So yeah, yeah, I always call those micro yeses in projects, making sure you're getting a micro yes at little intervals within the project so you know you're in the right direction.

Speaker 2: 19:23

Yeah, that's exactly it. Micro, yeses, I love that. I'll steal that.

Speaker 1: 19:27

Good, because I'm stealing this process.

Speaker 2: 19:32

I love that we talked about how the process has translated to a lot of the work that you do. It's just really cool when I hear that, because we have a copywriter friend that has kind of extrapolated a lot of our process into you know, she does like copywriting in a day, and so I think it's just really cool because it's not only like a win for clients but it's also a win Like I think you've experienced positive, yeah, how you work and what you're on and time blocking and even like predictable revenue is kind of nice Like, okay, I know, on these days I'm, you know, knocking out these projects, so it's just cool, but there's been some stealing.

Speaker 1: 20:10

Yeah I, anytime I I it's rare I really really love an experience that I've had and anytime it happens, I'm like what pieces of that can I pull into my process?

Speaker 2: 20:27

It's smart. Yeah, we do the same thing.

Speaker 1: 20:31

OK, so what was I going to ask you specifically? I wanted to ask you this isn't the question that I had in mind right now, but I'm going to go with it anyway what tools do you use throughout it, like project management? I know you use Content Snare for gathering the information ahead of time.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Yeah, so Astana is a big project management tool. So our project manager lives in Asana in terms of moving the client through our process, so like send the invoice, like add the calendar date, you know all those different pieces that she kind of has to do from a high level. So Asana is a big one. And then all of our file storage is in Dropbox, and so Dropbox paper, which is kind of like the Google Doc version of, has become where all of our other like checklists and whatnot, live or doc. So picture, like you know, an online blank document for every single client. So we have one called tiny marketing and each time we're pasting in that same checklist. So we have a discovery meeting checklist, we have a content review session checklist, we have a design day checklist, we have a site launch checklist, and it just goes on and on. So we paste that in every time, or I think it's actually a template that our project manager just creates each time. And so basically, a designer knows, okay, they look at their calendar, they have tiny marketing on their calendar and they just go to that paper doc and they can have it up and just basically start knocking things out. Start knocking things out.

Speaker 2: 22:18

So yeah, I would say Asana and Dropbox Paper are the big ones. We really like Dropbox Paper for our design process because it gives us a lot more flexibility to take notes and move things around and make it our own. I don't know how familiar you are with Asana, but we tried to move everything into Asana when we moved over to it, but it's not as fluid and flexible. It's really great at having organized check to it, but it's not as like fluid and flexible. Like it's really great at having organized checkboxes, but in Dropbox paper we can literally like have a bunch of notes under one specific check mark and have notes from the client and feedback that we need to like wrap the next day. So, yeah, I would say those are our two big ones. We use Slack for all of our internal communication, but I feel like that's a given. Slack is pretty popular among teams these days.

Speaker 1: 23:05

Yeah, I think maybe two years ago I moved to Teamwork for project management and it does allow you to put in notes and everything within those little tasks.

Speaker 2: 23:20

Okay, good to know. Teamwork.

Speaker 1: 23:22

Teamwork. It's nice for agencies too, because, like all of the billing can be in there too, so you understand how profitable the project is.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Yeah, good to know, I'll check that out. Teamwork.

Speaker 1: 23:35

Oh, and it has a Slack. Well, it has its own version of Slack in there.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Okay, cool, so everything could be in one place. Yeah, we have thought about moving to something that, like, we've looked at Notion and we've looked at a couple other software that could consolidate things a bit more. So I think that could be a future. Maybe Put it on the list. Two, three four.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Yeah, check it out. I've heard good things about Notion. It's more of like a wiki for SOPs. I mean that sounds like something that could be beneficial for you too, since you guys are like killing it with your processes.

Speaker 2: 24:16

Yeah thanks, yeah. No, we're always like wide open to process improvements and whatnot. I think we're frequently always looking at like okay, who came out with a better software than what we're using and all that. Oh my gosh, good tip.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Yeah, I'm always talking about how I'm like the chronic beta tester. If something's out, I will try it, I will dig in it. I love her. Yeah, good, I have a lot of logins. I probably have thousands of logins out there.

Speaker 2: 24:44

I know, yeah, 1password is like our lifesaver, because you know, we have a gazillion logins all in one place.

Speaker 1: 24:51

Oh my gosh, I know Me too. I would be screwed without a password manager manager. Okay, is there anything that?

Speaker 2: 25:08

we missed and, if not, can you tell people how they can work with Knapsack? Yeah, let's see. Is there anything that we missed? Yeah, I think that pretty much covers everything In terms of how people can work with Knapsack. You can go to our website, knapsackcreativecom. On our website, there is a schedule, a meeting, with a designer button across the site and you can actually fill out that form, and we would set up a discovery meeting, and so that would be a good way that people can reach us. We're also on Instagram and Facebook Not super active currently, sorry. We are there. Oh, and you guys have a podcast called the Friday Habit, and so it's really great for talking about systems and processes and basically making your business more efficient and whatnot. So, yeah, you can check out that podcast, the Friday Habit, and hear from Ben.

Speaker 1: 26:12

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Savannah and getting a behind the scenes. Look at how they create an amazing client experience and I'm saying that with a first-hand experience, since they were my web design company and no, they didn't pay me or give me a free discount to say that I paid full price and I still loved them. I paid full price and I still loved them. So check out Knapsack if you are a Squarespace website or if you're thinking about moving to Squarespace. Their experience is amazing. They do beautiful work. I adore them and if you enjoyed this episode, remember to like, rate, review, subscribe. Enjoyed this episode. Remember to like, rate review, subscribe and hit share. I'm going to give you a second right now. Do it, hit that share button, share it with a friend and let them know hey, this is how you create an amazing client experience. So I'm going to reiterate some of my favorite points from that. So what they do is they have really clear SOPs, standard operating procedures, and they have it all documented. They have templates for their project management that are all ready to go. They have a website dedicated to just client onboarding where they have the roadmap that clients will experience on there and they just duplicate it, change the URL, so it's just for you and you have a clear overview of what you need. They use Content Snare to gather all of the information that they need to be able to do the project as efficiently as possible and last. They live and die by time blocks and they had a really beautiful system for that, which I'm totally gonna steal.

Speaker 1: 28:02

As soon as I'm done recording this episode Gonna go into my calendar start time blocking it. So beautiful creatures, thank you again for joining me. I love you, I love you, I love you, I appreciate you, and the fact that you spend time listening to me jabber on about marketing every week means the world to me. Goodbye, if you enjoyed this episode, please, please, please, remember to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and rate and review, but, most importantly, tell your friends, share this episode with a friend so other people know about Tiny Marketing and our Uncut Summer series. I will see you next week with another great one. Thank you.