- If you wanna 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 wanna go to the When can people book this event, and there's an awful lot
of information in here so you wanna make sure that you look at the careful details. The first place that we
wanna 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 wanna 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 wanna
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. The next thing that we
wanna 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 wanna 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 wanna
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. And there's really two settings that we wanna 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 it 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 wanna 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. 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 wanna 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 wanna fill up any day full of consulting engagements. I wanna 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 wanna 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 wanna come down to the
Additional Options section and we wanna 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 wanna turn
on the Add Guests feature if you wanna allow people
to invite other guests, other email addresses as
a part of the invitation. But the one that I wanna 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 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. 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'm 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.
