How small businesses are using Calendly to connect with customers

It’s not just kids in grade school who are joining classes remotely these days.

Adults across the world are using Zoom to teach, coach, and consult others in real time. 

There are dozens of professions that have moved remote this past year, and some might surprise you.

Fitness instructors, sure. 

But what about baking courses, or those “sip & paint” classes?

Those businesses are built on people being able to get together and use the same ingredients, paints, brushes, etc.

And scheduling several students is different than arranging a 1:1 meeting. 

You need a way to get the class on all their calendars (no matter their time zone), and need a way to charge them before they attend.

That’s not to mention the ingredients or supplies.

Luckily, Calendly solves for all these things!

Here’s how.

Scheduling, one to many

Using Calendly will allow you to meet with all your students or attendees in the same place.

Assuming your Calendly is already connected to Zoom (or your preferred video conferencing tool), you’ll have no problem scheduling — and hosting — your next class.

When you need to add more than one person to an invite, just click “Add additional Guests” below the first guest’s name, like so.

You’ll be able to add the other email addresses here.

You can paste them as well — no problem.

Once you’ve got all your guests in there and have clicked “schedule event,” you’ll see multiple emails in the scheduled event, as seen below.

It’s really that easy to schedule several people in one event with Calendly.

Charge students with Stripe or PayPal

Because we’re using examples of small businesses going remote, we’ll also need a way to charge those who attend our classes.

Calendly’s integrations with Stripe and PayPal will let you do this smoothly, allowing attendees to pay when they sign up for the class.

This is especially useful for small businesses of one or two people, like fitness instructors, who get to see their payment hit right when they start a consult or class.

That’s a great incentive to keep your small business going!

Again, this can be used in the event of several students in one class.

Just connect your Calendly to Stripe or PayPal (it’s really easy), and you’re ready to start charging the moment your students schedule.

Use custom questions and notes as needed

As mentioned, many small businesses rely on shared tools or ingredients to provide their service.

Calendly accounts for this, allowing you to add custom questions as people schedule or join your course.

Perhaps as a fitness or nutrition consultant, you need to ask a few basic, intake questions to get things rolling.

But maybe you’re hosting a knitting class, and you need to give your students a list of materials to purchase.

Not a problem. Just add your list to the meeting notes. 

You can even build Amazon lists and paste the URL to make it easier for attendees to find and purchase the necessary items.

From lists to initial consult questions, Calendly is perfect for the small business going remote.

Calendly loves small business

Small business owners whose livelihood revolves around hosting classes or other in-person events can transition those things online using Calendly and Zoom.

It doesn’t matter if you help people one-on-one, or you teach a classful of people each week. Calendly can help you pivot to remote teaching, and most importantly, get you paid directly.

Try Calendly for yourself (it’s free), and see if it will work for your business.