Managing client expectations and staying organized during wedding and event planning can be overwhelming. Did you know that some HoneyBook mistakes could be costing you both time and money? As a leading business management tool for wedding professionals, HoneyBook can transform your workflow—if you know how to avoid the common pitfalls. In today’s post, we’ll dive into the most frequent HoneyBook mistakes and show you how to fix them so you can maximize your business’s efficiency.

1. Common HoneyBook Setup Mistakes That Hurt Your Business

A common HoneyBook mistake that users make is not fully optimizing their account setup. Skipping key steps—like completing your profile, adding branding elements, connecting your bank account, and setting up workflows—limits the platform’s effectiveness.

When you skip these steps, you’re missing out on major benefits like:

• Maintaining a professional impression through a branded profile
• Quick and seamless online payments
• Automating tasks to lighten your workload
• Accessing valuable analytics that can transform your business strategy

To avoid this HoneyBook mistake, take the time to go through their setup guide and ensure every detail is in place.

2. How to Avoid Managing Multiple Projects for One Client in HoneyBook

Another frequent HoneyBook mistake is creating multiple projects for the same client. This can clutter your dashboard, create confusion, and make it harder to track important things like invoices, contracts, and payments.

For example, let’s say you’re working with a client for both their wedding planning and an additional event, like a bridal shower. Instead of creating separate projects for each service, you can manage everything under one project by using HoneyBook’s add-on feature. This allows you to add extra services or products to an existing project without creating a new one.

Here are some examples of how to use the add-on feature to keep everything organized:

• Extra hours: If your client books additional consultation hours or planning sessions, you can add those directly to the original wedding project.
• Additional sessions: Let’s say you’re offering both engagement and bridal sessions. You can include both under the same client project, using the add-on feature to specify the separate sessions.
• Package upgrades: If your client decides to upgrade their photography package or add on a second photographer, you can easily manage this in the same project instead of starting a new one.
• Deliverables outside of the original scope: If your client asks for additional deliverables, such as extra prints or albums after the event, you can track these in the same project without needing to juggle separate contracts.

By using this feature, you’ll have one centralized project per client, making your dashboard cleaner and your workflow much more efficient. It will also help your clients feel less overwhelmed when accessing their client portal.

3. Why You Shouldn’t Use HoneyBook’s Pipeline for Task Management

One of the biggest HoneyBook mistakes new users make is confusing tasks with stages in the pipeline. The pipeline is your visual roadmap of where each project stands in your workflow, but many users mistakenly create stages for every small task, which can quickly turn into a cluttered, inefficient process.

What’s the difference between tasks and stages?

• Stages: These are the major milestones or steps in your client journey. They give you an overview of where each project is at in its lifecycle. Common stages might include “Lead,” “Proposal Sent,” “Contract Signed,” “In Progress,” and “Completed.”
• Tasks: These are the smaller, actionable items that you or your team need to complete to move the project through each stage. Tasks might include things like “Send proposal,” “Schedule consultation,” “Send invoice,” or “Follow up with the client.”

Example of a cluttered pipeline due to task overload:

Imagine your project pipeline has stages like these:

• Send contract
• Send invoice
• Schedule a follow-up call
• Send questionnaire
• Prepare a proposal
• Send final gallery

This setup essentially turns your pipeline into a checklist, making it hard to see at a glance where each client stands in your workflow. If you have multiple clients, this becomes overwhelming very quickly, as your pipeline fills up with too many small steps.

How to properly use stages and tasks:

Instead of using stages to track every single action, you should simplify your pipeline into broader categories, such as:

• Lead
• Proposal Sent
• Contract Signed
• Project In Progress
• Completed

Example of an optimized HoneyBook pipeline with tasks assigned properly:

Stage: Lead

• Task 1: Send follow-up email
• Task 2: Schedule consultation

Stage: Proposal Sent

• Task 1: Send proposal via HoneyBook
• Task 2: Check in with the client for feedback

Stage: Contract Signed

• Task 1: Send invoice
• Task 2: Set up the project timeline

Stage: Project In Progress

• Task 1: Send questionnaire
• Task 2: Schedule the next meeting

Stage: Completed

• Task 1: Send thank-you note
• Task 2: Request review and referrals

In this system, your pipeline is neat and simple, and you use the tasks feature to keep track of the specific actions needed for each stage. This way, your workflow stays streamlined, and you can quickly see where each project is at a glance.

Why this is important:

By keeping your stages simple and assigning detailed actions as tasks, you ensure that your pipeline isn’t overwhelmed by too many steps. You’ll also be able to more effectively automate and assign tasks to team members, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.

4. The Pitfall of Creating Proposals or Invoices

Many users fall into the trap of creating proposals or invoices directly in HoneyBook’s template section, which is one of the most common HoneyBook mistakes. While templates are useful for standardizing documents, they are not meant for direct client communication.

What’s the issue with using templates for proposals or invoices?

When you create a proposal or invoice inside the template section, you cannot actually send it to your client or receive payments directly from it. Templates are designed as a starting point to save time, but they still need to be customized within the client portal to be actionable.

Example of the mistake:

Let’s say you create a proposal for a client in the template section. You fill out all the details, but when you go to send it, you realize you can’t email it to the client or collect a signature. You’ve essentially created a “draft” that can’t be executed until you copy it into the client’s project, which means extra work and potential delays in the client’s experience.

How to avoid this pitfall:

To avoid this HoneyBook mistake, always add the template proposals, contracts, and invoices inside the client’s project portal. This ensures that all your communication with the client is centralized and actionable. From here, you can:

• Send the proposal or invoice via email or a shareable link.
• Track when the client views, signs, or pays the proposal or invoice.
• Automate follow-up emails and reminders if the client hasn’t responded.

Pro tip: Use HoneyBook’s automatic reminders to nudge clients about unsigned proposals or unpaid invoices, saving you the manual effort of following up!

5. The Importance of Embedding a HoneyBook Contact Form on Your Website

One of the most overlooked HoneyBook mistakes is not embedding a contact form on your website. This is a crucial error because it impacts how easily potential clients can reach out and how efficiently you can manage incoming inquiries.

Why is this important?

The HoneyBook contact form automatically adds inquiries to your pipeline, categorizes them as leads, and triggers automated workflows. Without it, you’re likely collecting inquiries manually, which is inefficient and increases the chances of losing track of potential clients.

How to avoid this:

1. Go to Tools in HoneyBook and select Contact Form.
2. Customize the form to collect key details like event date, budget, and services needed.
3. Embed the form on your website by copying and pasting the provided code.

By embedding a HoneyBook contact form, you streamline your lead generation process and improve response times, ultimately increasing the likelihood of converting inquiries into bookings.

Getting Started with HoneyBook Today

HoneyBook is a robust tool that can help you streamline your wedding planning business, improve client interactions, and boost your productivity. However, avoiding these common HoneyBook mistakes is key to unlocking the full potential of the platform.

At Boda Bliss, we specialize in helping wedding professionals integrate HoneyBook seamlessly into their businesses. Contact us today to ensure you’re using HoneyBook to its fullest and avoiding any pitfalls along the way. Let’s get your workflow streamlined and your business thriving!

Free Resource: HoneyBook Setup Checklist

To help you get started and avoid these common mistakes, grab our free HoneyBook Setup Checklist! It’s designed to guide you through setting up your HoneyBook account step-by-step, so you can get the most out of the platform right from the start. Download it here and start streamlining your business today!