Your Client Said Yes... Now Don’t Scare Them Off

Onboarding doesn’t need to be a headache. Learned this the hard way.

I used to make onboarding way harder than it needed to be.

Back in the day, I’d send some big, official-sounding welcome email, attach a 10-step Notion doc, and schedule a long kickoff call that felt like a corporate board meeting.

I thought clients wanted structure. Turns out they just wanted to know what happens next.

Here’s what actually works now:

You know that moment when the client says, “So… how does this work?” and you suddenly feel like you need a TED Talk prepared?

Don’t do that. Instead, I keep it stupid simple.

“Here’s what we need to hit the ground running. Let’s knock this out today so you’re seeing progress by next week.”

(Yep, that simple.)

A few things I’ve learned the hard way.

1 . Skip the proposal rehash.

They already said yes. No need to make them sit through it again. Just tell them what’s next.

2 . Get all logins during the kickoff call.

If they say, “I’ll add you later,” you’ll be chasing them for two weeks.

3 . Make the first task ridiculously easy.

If the first thing they have to do feels like homework, they will procrastinate.

4 . Be specific about next steps.

No vague “we’ll be in touch soon” nonsense. Tell them exactly what to expect.

Also, onboarding is not the time to start flexing all your ideas. They don’t need a 30-minute deep dive on your strategy. They just need to feel like they made the right decision hiring you.

The first 48 hours set the tone for the entire relationship.

These little things make a whole lot of difference with your delivery, your client relationships, and your sanity. And when your process isn’t a mess, it becomes a whole lot easier to scale to $100K.

Cheers,

Tim

PS: If you're running an agency, doing $20K–$40K per month, and LinkedIn still feels like a guessing game, let’s fix that.

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