Searching for the Flat World Collaboration Swiss Army Knife – MavenLink

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Mavenlink. All opinions are 100% mine.

For several years now I have been looking for a more efficient means of collaborating with people, working on projects with clients, managing the deliverables and changes to those projects and monitoring and collecting the remuneration.  Basically, I just want a tool that makes it easy for me to work my magic, keeps my customers happy and gets me paid without too much effort!

I found something that may fit the bill called Mavenlink

Old Broken Process

When I work as a consultant, I work on a prepaid basis.  I do this primarily to keep things simple.  It works, and the type of consulting services I provide can be completed soon after I am paid.  With more complex multi-phase projects I stagger the pre-payments for each phase.

Here’s how the process works.

1. I create an Estimate in Quickbooks Online, a service that I pay about $25 per month for, which I find cheaper than buying and maintaining a full version of Quickbooks on my computer.
2. I send out the Estimate to my Clients as a means to initiate the Review, Discussion, negotiation and Finalization of the Project plan.  Once everyone is happy with the plan,
3. I create an Invoice which becomes the Project Requirement.  I Print this as a PDF and send it to the customer for their records.
4. I then separately send a PayPal invoice for the same items, referencing the Invoice number in the PDF.  This enables my customers to pay via PayPal or Credit Card if they so choose and generally makes my life easier than waiting for a check in the mail.
5. When I receive the payment, I then go back into Quickbooks and receive the payment and clear the invoice as paid.
6. Finally I complete the project and deliver what is required to the customer.
7. I repeat this process for additional phases of a project.

Its really a bit of a pain in the butt.  It is slow, cumbersome and can sometimes take more time than the actual project!  I purposefully DO NOT charge for small services because it is not worth my time to mess with the invoicing.

I’d love it if Quickbooks had PayPal Invoice integration, but they do not.  In general Quickbooks is overkill for my business needs on many levels, but it does provide me with scalability if business grows substantially.

So today I came across a service through a referral on SocialSpark.  The Service is called Mavenlink (which caught my eye as my first blog’s name is Maven Mapper’s Information).

This service provides consultants with the capability to manage a project, pitch the proposal to a client, lock up the terms of the project agreement, track the progress and manage invoicing and payments via PayPal.

Project Platform

Its a one stop shop not just for what I use for the Estimate, Invoice, Billing and Collection but also the interface with the customer, the negotiation and the project planning (which I do separately in spread sheets and mind maps, yet another step in my old process).

Brand Enhancement and Social Marketing

Another cool aspect about this service is that as it tracks what and how you are doing, this is used to market you, your company, your results and abilities to other potential customers both through Mavenlink and LinkedIn.

Build Relationships with People that Help you Get the Project Done

Plus, as you are working through projects, if I understand the information correctly, you can also work with other consultants as projects tend to change growing and shrinking during different phases, making it easier for multiple companies, consultants, contractors etc to come together deliver a good result, break apart and reform in a different configuration to fit a different client’s needs.

Result –> Working Smarter

So that’s what I see with this service so far.  Proof is in the pudding, and maybe more importantly proof is in adapting your own work culture to any give system or tool.  I intend to try this service out.  At service rate plans of $20 and $39, I might even be able to save a little money if I drop my Quickbooks online service.  But if I could find a way to save all that time that I currently waste and dread wasting just to get projects off the ground, pitched and negotiated this service or any other that achieves my goal would be well worth this rate.

Sponsored Article Disclosure – I was provided compensation of $10 to review this site and service.  These funds are going towards my wife’s National Board Certification.  She teaches fourth grade for a title I school in North Carolina that needs the best teachers possible.  The state does not provide for this certification process.  So far we have paid over $2,500 for her boards and need an additional $1,700 to complete the next phase.  I do find this service interesting and will be trying it myself.  I am not being paid nor sponsored to actually try the service, the sponsorship simply provided for my new awareness of this service.