If you are a freelancer or service provider, client onboarding is one of the most important systems to create in your business.
Especially if you want to grow and build a profitable, long term business.
Client boarding is the process of bring on a new client into your business so that you can start delivering the service to them.
It’s a great opportunity to build a strong relationship so that the client wants to keep working with you long term.
When I first started my marketing business, selling my services to multiple clients at once felt overwhelming.
What I’ve learned over the years is that if you have a good onboarding system, you’ll look a lot more organized and professional to new clients and you’ll also feel better about the process.
A good process will:
Make you look professional
Makes delivery the service more efficient
Can lead to word-of-mouth referrals for more business
This can help you get more referrals because when a client is happy they usually tell their friends.
Benefits of Having a Client Onboarding Process
Like I mentioned earlier, not having a good process can make you feel unorganized and look unprofessional to clients. Some of the benefits of creating a system include:
Helps set expectations.
A good onboarding process allows you set clear expectation of what’s to come when working with you. You can share the next steps and communicate what you need from the client and when you will deliver what by when.
Creating visibility into your process can reduce any issues or challenges you would experience with a client if you didn’t communicate how you will be working together.
Creates client confidence
A clear onboarding process can also help to reduce buyers remorse so that the client feels confident with their purchasing decision.
Provides a path for you to follow
A good onboarding process can help you stay organized. Once you create a system, you won’t have to be stressed out or overwhelmed with all the work you have to do because you have a step-by-step plan.
Get repeat clients and referrals
Clients who are happy will keep working with you long term and give you referrals. That’s why it’s important to have a system in place.
Elements of a Good Client Onboarding Process
Some of the basic elements that you should include in your onboarding process include:
Sending out a welcome email or welcome kit.
Sharing a link to gather client information so that you can get started with the work.
Setting up an initial kickoff call with the client and their team members.
Communicating the timeline and schedule of what to expect and when.
Communicating your hours of operations and when you’ll have meetings (or not depending on your package).
One of the things I do to save a lot of time with onboarding is to automate the entire process.
This way if I forget something, the client isn’t impacted because the steps are on auto-pilot.
A good tool that I personally use for this is Dubsado. With this tool you can:
Share the service agreement to get electronically signed by the client
Setup automatic billing and invoices
Send canned emails for when they pay their invoice and sign the contract.
Send out a form like a questionnaire to collect information that you need to start the project.
Send a welcome package
Create an automatic payment plan
Create a lead capture form on your website for lead who may be interested in working with you
…and a lot more
You can try Dubsado for FREE using this link here.
The Importance of Service Contracts In Client Onboarding
One of the things that I really like about Dubsado is that it makes having the service agreement contract signed very easy.
I highly recommend that you do not start work until your client signs the service agreement and pays the invoice for the first month.
If you are doing more project based work then you can request to be paid 50% upfront or 25%.
You can also decide to set project milestones and have the client pay in increments after you complete certain parts of the work. This is usually done with web and graphic designers.
If you are a social media manager, digital marketer or if you provide ongoing monthly services then you can request the client pays the first month up front. Or you can request to be paid twice per month.
A good service agreement can outline your payment terms.
Service agreements are legal contracts. You can purchase pre-written templates from an attorney or legal template shop.
One such template shop is from Coaches And Company. They sell contract templates for freelancers, social media managers and digital marketers as well as coaches and consultants.
I put together a client onboarding process guide and checklist to help you map out this entire process.
