NERDY TECH POST ALERT!
No wedding couples love searching through a year's worth of emails to find a contract from a vendor to review or a piece of information that was mentioned a year back somewhere. "What were the stage dimensions for the band again? Where was that Photography contract? How much do I owe the Florist? Could have sworn we talked about it last summer!"
You may have driven yourself crazy trying to type in keywords in Gmail's email filter, or best case scenario it's thrown into a long list of starred emails. I'm going to give you two SOLID ways to manage vendor communication that you can do right out of the gate that I learned from business efficiency coach Ask Yvi. You can manage vendors like a pro!
1. Make a separate joint email address strictly used for wedding planning.
Ok, this sounds straight forward and easy enough, right? First, this keeps your personal, work, marketing, and promo emails separate from everything else. Between your wedding planning emails + newsletters from vendors, & your own personal life, one email for everything can become overwhelming. Second, it eliminates the vendor from CC'ing your fiance. Even if one partner is managing that particular vendor, it will help build relationships with vendors by having them address both partners. Lastly, you'll be 100% sure that no email is lost in translation.
2. Automate your Gmail and Reach Inbox 0
I learned this from Business Efficiency Coach, Yvonne Heimann. Did you know that you can automatically assign labels to emails? Sort, Star, Skip Inbox.....it's all done through AUTOMATION!
There's an advanced setting in Gmail called MULTIPLE INBOXES! This turns your Gmail inbox into an efficiency machine. Settings > Advanced > Multiple Inboxes > Enable. Now, the Multiple Inbox feature will appear as its own tab in the settings. Click on the Multiple Inbox feature, and move the multiple inbox position to the right side of the inbox. Now, click on settings > Configure inbox > Uncheck social & promotions so only the primary inbox shows up.
Now, take a minute and think about what you want your new inbox to look like.
Yvi and I have our labels as "To/DO", "Waiting on Client", "Promotions", and "Save", but you could actually name these tabs anything you'd like! In your brand new wedding email address (step 1), you're going to create new sections as you see on the right, and then you can associate a type of star with that section.
:
USING STARS: When a vendor emails me, I can use the star that associates with the category I choose on the right. Maybe instead of the section on the right called LEAD, yours will say "Vendor Pricing". For me, when I star an email using the red exclamation point, Gmail will push the email to the right side under "TO DO/REPLY".
USING LABELS: When a vendor emails me, it will automatically assign a label to keep things organized.
When you have decided what will work best for you and your partner, watch this video and Yvi will take you through the setup. It's easy and will save you SO MUCH TIME! How to find Gmail sanity - organize, sort, and label your inbox on one single page
How Funktastic Takes Communication to the Next Level
Funktastic Productions' Client Portal is the real deal! Log in through our website, enter your username and password, and you can do the following:
View email correspondence between you and Funktastic
View Contracts and Documents
Access to our Song Guide and newest music repertoire
Schedule a phone call
An interactive task board (like Trello) where you can upload docs and keep track of tasks.
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