Editing Your Event Settings
If you want to get the most out of Calendly, you should optimize your setup. So in this video, I'm showing you seven Calendly settings you should review right now. (air whooshing)
So here I am within my Calendly account, and the first place that we're gonna go is one of our events. I'm gonna click on this event to open it up and now I can edit my details. First thing, we want to go to the 'When can people book this event', and there's an awful lot of information in here so you want to make sure that you look at the careful details.
Days Out Invitees Can Schedule
The first place that we want to look is the date range. Now often when people are first setting up their Calendly events or accounts, they select indefinitely into the future, meaning that they want to be able to be booked at any time, right? If you're trying to acquire clients and get more bookings, you might want to select this option or at least be tempted. But I highly recommend that you keep some type of tight timeframe into the future. So in this example, I've set mine up for 14 calendar days.
Now we can change between calendar days and business days if you want to exclude the weekends but I've chosen two weeks out from today, meaning that no one can book me three weeks out in advance. Remember, do you really want to give someone the ability to book you three months or even six months into the future?
It's gonna depend on your business and the type of event that we're looking at here, but make sure that you're comfortable with the timeframe in which people can schedule you out.
Adding Buffer Time Between Meetings
The next thing that we want to look at here is when it comes to buffer time. And although it's near the bottom of this list, it's something that we don't want to overlook. Want to add time before or after your events? I strongly encourage you to say yes, meaning that you don't have meetings booked back to back or telling someone, "Listen, I've got a hard stop," because in most cases, we are dealing with video conferencing such as Zoom meetings or Google Hangouts, and so you don't want someone else dropping in to your meeting before you've wrapped things up.
So we've got a few different increments here between five minutes all the way out to a few hours, so you need to select what is best for you. But I also strongly encourage you to select both a before event and an after event buffer time. Remember, we're not just looking at things that are being scheduled with Calendly, these are also other events which are going to be appearing and scheduling on your linked calendars. So maybe even if you've blocked out some time for some important work, you want to give yourself some buffer time before someone can schedule you in. So I highly recommend that you select a buffer time for both the before and after event.
Next up, we don't want to forget this little link here, which we find at the very bottom of this section, 'Additional rules for your availability' cause I think there's some really key things in here that you're going to want to check. The first one here has to do with scheduling conditions.
Minimum Time Before an Event Can Be Scheduled
And there's really two settings that we want to look at here. The first one is invitees can schedule within. Now, what exactly does this one mean? I think this might be the most important setting in the entire event area. This basically means that no one can book me until 16 hours from now. Meaning if I share this or if they come across this link or my scheduling page on my website, no one can book me, the earliest, I should say, the earliest that someone can book me is 16 hours in advance. Now for me, this gives me enough time to both prepare and perhaps ask a few questions, review what they are wanting for me. And if you are not using the built-in billing here within Calendly, it also gives you some time to send an invoice, for example, or however you collect payment, or maybe just to confirm that this is something that you want to keep.
If you're doing a consulting business, you don't want to waste your time and just let anyone book your time. Maybe you need to qualify them first, and that's going to give you some buffer time. If you do not set this for some time in the future, that means that someone could book you 15 minutes from now or an hour from now, so make sure you have at least a few hours in between here, again, depending on your event type.
Limit Number of Events Per Day
Now the one down below is also something that I think many Calendly users overlook and that is the 'Maximum allowed events per day for this type of event.' Now I understand, when you're first starting out, especially if you're starting a new business, you might say, "I want as many bookings. I want as many clients as I possibly can." But think about the event that you are creating here. Should there be a maximum?
In this particular example that I'm looking at here, this is my consulting event, and so I want to limit myself to only two of these one-hour consulting sessions a day. Why? Because I've got other things that I need to do as well, and I don't want to fill up any day full of consulting engagements. I want to give my clients the best of me, and I have found that if I can limit this to a maximum of two, that is great. I've got the energy. I can give them all of my focus and attention. I don't want to be drained when it gets to maybe the fourth or the fifth consulting engagement of that day. So make sure you select at least a number, a number that is appropriate for you.
Next on our list, we want to come down to the 'Additional Options' section and we want to select the first one here, 'Invitee Questions.' Now at first glance, this may look rather basic and including a name and an email address is going to be standard. A quick additional tip is that you may want to turn on the 'Add Guests' feature if you want to allow people to invite other guests, other email addresses as a part of the invitation.
Add Custom Questions
But the one that I want to focus on here is actually asking your invitees a question so that when they sign up to book a time with you, that you are getting some additional information from them. All we need to do is click on this area here and we can edit this message to whatever we want. We can ask them specific questions as to, what would you like to speak with me about in particular? Can you tell me a little bit more about the technology you're using or what you'd like to get out of this meeting? You can change it and you can even make it a required question if necessary. But the other benefit here is that you don't have to limit yourself to just one question. Here, I can select 'add a new question' and I can add multiple questions, and make them required if necessary.
This can be a fantastic way to validate the individual who is requesting to book time with you. What exactly are they after? What are they seeking as a part of this engagement? So you can qualify them in advance and get some helpful information from them. Once in a while, I've received information from someone and realized, "You know what, I'm maybe not the best person suited for their needs." Not only did it save them time, but it saved me time. So I didn't have to find that out during the call. I could read what they wrote here. Maybe ask a follow-up question, but then say, "You know what, this probably isn't the best thing for you. We're probably not the best match and we can both find better solutions."
So make sure you take a hard look at using a question, whether it's a qualifying question or just asking for some more details here within Advance.
Next in our list, we wanna get actually out of our event here and actually come up to our 'Account' and select 'Account Settings.' Now you may think that by selecting 'Account Settings,' this doesn't have much to do with the rest of your site. It has to do with your profile picture and your name and your welcome message. Well, yes, these things are actually going to appear on your Calendly page, but what I wanna show you and what often too many people forget
Add Your Logo to the Booking Page
is the branding area here. Here, you can see that I've uploaded my logo. Why is this important? Well, I'll show you. I send people to my Calendly booking page, I want them to make sure that they know who they are booking with and not to question if this is the right screen. Not only can they see my profile picture here and my name but having the logo here can give them some additional comfort and also can make it a little more seamless if this is coming directly from my website or a link within my email. So if we go to our Calendly settings here, pay attention to the requirement here for the logo. Not only will it remind you where that logo will appear but they recommend that you use an image of 440 pixels by 220 pixels for the best display.
I would recommend that you always look at the recommendation whether it's Calendly or whatever website that you're uploading a logo or an image so it looks the best for your viewers.
Last but not least, I've perhaps saved the best setting of them all and the coolest trick for using Calendly. If you use the Google Chrome browser, I highly recommend that you install the Calendly extension. Why? Well, not only can you access your Calendly dates that much quicker, but let me jump into my email here for a second. With the Calendly extension installed up above, I can select it and I can easily see my different event types here. So what I can do is I can come here and actually copy this link immediately and then paste it into my email. But that's not the best tip of all.
Add Times Directly to an Email
In fact, my favorite feature here is that you can see there is a link here called 'Add times to email.' What this will do is if I select this link, I can then say, "You know what, I'm gonna make myself available" or, "I want to give this individual some availability on the 5th, on the 6th, and the 7th." I don't have to give them my entire calendar. I just wanna focus in on a particular area of the week. I'm gonna select 'Finish and Share' and now these times are copied to my clipboard. All I need to do now is come over here and I am going to paste them into my email. And look at this. Now this individual, once I've sent this email and they receive it, they can then book a time directly from within the email. I don't have to send them to another browser tab. I don't have to send them to my main Calendly screen. They can book it right here from within the email.
Now, if you'd like to learn more about every setting in Calendly, I recommend that you click this video here. And if you have other questions about how to use Calendly, be sure to let me know in the comments down below. Thank you so much for watching. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
