Zoom and Bonsai Connect Meetings to Client Payments (Full Transcript)

[00:00:02] Speaker 1: This session will show you how Zoom handles the full journey from first client meeting to final invoice. I'm Sarah Staffaroni, I run Zoom's product marketing for SMB, and joining me is Laura Albuie, who runs product marketing at Bonsai, which if you haven't heard of it yet, is Zoom's client management solution. Thanks, Sarah.

[00:00:24] Speaker 2: So we spend a lot of time talking to small business owners, and the thing we hear most is there are too many tools and subscriptions to manage. You finish a client meeting, and suddenly you're jumping between five different apps just to move the project forward. Notes in one place, the proposal in another, the project timeline somewhere else. Nothing talks to each other, and you become the human connector between all of it. Copying, pasting, updating, chasing, that's the real tax on a small business, the constant drag of tools that were never built to work together. So what we're going to show you today is what it looks like when your client meetings flow naturally into a proposal, a project deliverable, and then a paid invoice as one connected workflow.

[00:01:13] Speaker 1: To help bring this to life, Laura and I have created a fictional brand strategy consultant who's inspired by real conversations with Zoom customers. So we're going to follow Emma, who's just had her first Zoom meeting with an e-commerce company named Omzo Pets that sells dog apparel. I mean, who doesn't love dog apparel, honestly? So let's pick up right after their first call. Take a look at what's waiting for Emma the moment her call has ended. My notes has automatically captured the full transcript, the key decisions, and the action items. Virtually everything discussed is here in one place. This means that Emma stayed fully present during the conversation with Omzo Pets, and she was confident that everything important would be waiting for her after. After her call, she goes into Bonsai CRM and pulls up Omzo Pets' contact card. Look at what's already there. The meeting notes from that call, they're synced automatically. Also there is the meeting attendee list and the Zoom recording link. What this means is that Emma didn't have to copy or paste anything. And now the call notes sit alongside the rest of the client relationship. That means emails, calendar invites, and everything else Emma needs to keep the work moving.

[00:02:40] Speaker 2: Sarah, this flow really reminds me of our conversation with Katie, who runs her own architecture firm. Remember how she told us, Zoom takes notes for me and then it puts those notes into Bonsai. It does it automatically. Before I had a file for each project on my computer. Now if a client calls me, I can pull it right up and see exactly what we talked about.

[00:03:05] Speaker 1: I mean, at the risk of sounding cheesy, that is actual music to my ears. So for Emma, the meeting happened in Zoom, the context flowed into Bonsai, and now she can turn that conversation into action.

[00:03:19] Speaker 2: All right, so what's her next step? Typically, it's to follow up with her client with a proposal based on what was just discussed. So the great news is Emma doesn't need to start from a blank page. From her meeting notes, she opens the proposal builder and Bonsai starts drafting a proposal based on their conversation. She's not writing the proposal, she's directing it. And there it is, a structured proposal outline for AmsoPets, which includes the scope, the deliverables, and the timeline.

[00:03:52] Speaker 1: And that's the part that gets me every time. No starting from a blank page. There's no, what do we even agree on in that call again?

[00:04:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real game changer. And once Emma is happy with the outline, Bonsai even builds out the document for her to review and make her own. She can edit any section, adjust the content and design, add e-signing, and more. It's not a locked template, it's a living document she has full control over. To present her packages, Emma just needs to choose from her library of services with rates and deliverables already set up in Bonsai. She picks what applies to this project and drops it into the proposal. Now the proposal is created, her pricing is clear, and to save even more extra time down the line, she sets up her proposal to turn into a drafted invoice once it's accepted. She sends it off to her client and she'll know the moment Amso opens it for the first time.

[00:04:53] Speaker 1: This whole flow reminds me of Scott, do you remember Lore? He runs the design agency. He told us, I was using about six different tools before. Now I can do my proposals directly in here, which is connected to the project already, and collect upfront payment. Bonsai has automated a lot of things that I had to spend multiple steps doing before, and it has saved me a ton of time.

[00:05:20] Speaker 2: Exactly. We've heard this from so many business owners like Scott who were juggling multiple tools and now get to do it all in one place.

[00:05:28] Speaker 1: They're literally winning back hours. So Amso Pets has signed Emma's proposal, congrats Emma, she won the client. Now the actual work begins though, right? And this is where most consultants have to start from scratch, but watch what happens instead when Emma uses Zoom. In Zoom's app, Emma opens a blank Canvas doc. She gives Zoom's AI the link to Amso Pets meeting notes, the one that were already automatically captured in the first call. Then she prompts it to create a brand positioning brief for her clients. This includes sections for brand voice, target audience, competitive landscape, even recommended taglines.

[00:06:12] Speaker 2: Look at that, a structured brief with tables, call-outs, actual sections Emma can hand to her client. This is not a rough draft she worked on for hours.

[00:06:22] Speaker 1: Okay, and here's my favorite part. This is the part that makes it feel like a finished deliverable and not just a draft, it's the polished view. So Canvas cleans up the working document into a clean client ready layout. Emma can pick from a few presentation styles so that the brief looks exactly how she wants it to be presented to Amso Pets.

[00:06:47] Speaker 2: It's really the difference between handing a client a working doc and handing them something that looks like it was designed just for them.

[00:06:54] Speaker 1: And it doesn't stop there. Emma takes that brief and feeds it into AI slides to do one specific thing, create two slides focused on the competitive landscape section. It includes key competitors, the positioning gaps, and also where Amso Pets fits in.

[00:07:12] Speaker 2: Once she delivers her work, it's time for Emma to get paid. In Bonsai, her invoice draft is already waiting for her, created from that proposal Amso Pets accepted.

[00:07:23] Speaker 1: And Laura, her services and rates are carried over, right?

[00:07:26] Speaker 2: Exactly. Everything from her name and address to her services and rates got pulled in automatically. And the invoice is done in under a minute. Before clicking send, Emma customizes the invoices logo, header image, adds a late fee and payment method. She adds a personal message and sets up automatic payment reminders so that if Amso Pets doesn't pay by their due date, Bonsai will follow up for her. Now let's change the point of view. What does Lucas from Amso Pets see when Emma sends her invoice? It lands in his inbox. He clicks through, lands on a professional looking webpage. It's not an attachment. It's not a PDF. The amount due is clear and all he needs to do is pick his payment method and voila. And on Emma's end, the payment hits, Bonsai marks the project as paid and that's it.

[00:08:21] Speaker 1: So let's bring it back to where we started today. Normally what follows after a client meeting is hours of jumping between apps, reconstructing notes and writing a brief from scratch or building a proposal in one tool and then developing assets in another, chasing the invoice in a third. The tools your business runs on should work as hard as you do and they should work together so that you're not the one filling in the gaps between them. And what you've seen in this session is exactly that. With the right connected flow, they will. And if you're thinking, okay, yeah, I want this for my business, check out our Zoom for Business Owner Plan. It brings together Zoom Workplace Pro and Bonsai in one simple offer. It's one bundle, one workflow, everything working together so you can focus on the work and not the admin. Thank you so much for spending time with us.