In the first couple of months of 2020 many people began working from home due to unusual worldly circumstances. For those who couldn't work from home or had to go into usual place of work, there were also many people who were sent home not knowing when they would return to work.

This was the case for Amy Morgan, a hair stylist working for one of those big block-chain hair cutting salons. She was sent home without pay and not knowing when or if she'd have a job in the coming months. Rather than waiting at home for any word on her job she decided to venture out and start her own hair salon.

In the beginning, Amy spent a lot of time answering phone calls and responding to emails and text messages asking if she had any appointment openings. She quickly realized she needed a website and a better way for her clients to schedule appointments.

I met with Amy and we discussed where her biggest pain-points were and where she would like us to focus.

Amy needed to get the word out that she had started her own salon. She was able to contact some of her closest clients with whom she had created relationships with at her previous place of work, but she also needed to find new clients.

Amy's goal was to get a simple website and be found on Google. Her website didn't need to be anything complicated — she needed to let people know what services she offered (with pricing), her contact info, and ideally a way for clients to schedule their own appointment. Ideally Amy also wanted a website that she would be able to make simple updates to in the future, even though Amy does not have any coding/developing skills.

During the first couple of weeks of Amy's new venture, she quickly realized that answering phone calls and responding to text messages and emails wasn't working. There were several times in those first weeks where she was working with a client in her salon and someone would call, text, or email and ask about a last-minute appointment. The 'back and forth' with her clients trying to find a time that worked for both of them was very time consuming. There were also times where the client needed a last-minute appointment and Amy wasn't able to respond in time due to her working with another client at the time. In the end, Amy didn't want to play 'phone tag' with her clients.

Since Amy's goal was to get a website up and running as soon as possible, and for it to be something she could update herself in the future, we opted to go with a drag-and-drop website builder tool called Weebly. Tools like Weebly are great if you need a simple website that doesn't require any coding/development skills. This would allow for Amy to maintain and update the website herself moving forward.

Weebly provides its users with a simple interface and setup process. It is also a great solution because it provides multiple users access to the website building tools, allowing Amy to update and maintain in the future, but also leaves me with access so I can jump in and help when needed.

Learn more about Weebly and how I have used it with my clients here.

Learn about Weebly

Creating the home page, contact page, and services pages was quick and easy. Next, we moved on to the scheduling solution.

While Weebly does not have a native online scheduling tool, there are plenty of plug-and-play tools out there. We opted to use Calendly.

I have used Calendly for years, pretty much since their beginning. I love Calendly for its robust capabilities, yet clean and simple interface. The setup only takes minutes and they provide you with the code that you just copy and paste into Weebly. Within minutes you can have a scheduling page on your Weebly website.

Learn more about Calendly and how I have used with my clients here.

Learn about Calendly

Lastly, we wanted to make sure that Amy and her salon were found in Google searches and Google Maps. We created her Google My Business account which is the platform for business to manage all of the settings for their businesses to be found in searches and maps.

Once your Google My Business account has been set up it also allows for users to rate and review your business. Reviews are some of the best ways for other people to learn about your business and whether or not they want to also use your services.

In the end, Amy was able to get the website and online scheduling she wanted, and she can now be found on Google where new clients can find her.

Creating an online scheduling has save Amy, and her clients, so much time. They no longer need to go back and forth to try to find a time that works for both of them. All the clients have to do it go to her website, select and date and time that works for them, and click confirm. Both Amy and client receive email confirmations. The appointment is automatically added to Amy's calendar and her clients can also add it to their calendars with a single click.