Onboard new clients consistently
A smooth onboarding is the difference between a client who trusts you and one who second-guesses every invoice. This builder produces a tailored checklist that walks your team from the welcome email through access provisioning, asset collection, project setup, and the all-important first-30-days milestones.
How it works
The tool assembles checkbox sections that you can switch on or off. The access and provisioning block is service-aware: choosing “marketing” lists analytics, ad accounts, and CMS access; “development” lists repositories, hosting, and DNS; “design” lists brand libraries and prototyping tools. This means the most error-prone part of onboarding — getting the right access without over-provisioning — is pre-populated with sensible, least-privilege defaults.
Each section renders as plain-text [ ] checkboxes you can paste into Notion, Asana, a Google Doc, or any project tool. Custom items you type are appended as their own section, so your standard process and your bespoke steps live side by side.
What each section covers
Kickoff call. The goal here is alignment, not just introductions. A good kickoff confirms the project’s success criteria, clarifies who can approve decisions and who only reviews, establishes the communication cadence (weekly call? async updates?), and makes the out-of-scope items explicit. Misaligned expectations set in the kickoff become scope disputes three months later.
Access provisioning. This is consistently the messiest part of any onboarding. For marketing engagements the list typically includes: Google Analytics admin access, Google Ads manager access, social media account owner or admin roles, CMS login, and Mailchimp or email platform access. For development: GitHub repo collaborator, staging server SSH or hosting panel access, DNS management, and database read credentials for the first sprint. The checklist pre-fills the likely items so nothing gets remembered mid-project.
Brand assets. This section collects what you need before design or content work can begin: logo files in vector format, brand colours in hex or Pantone, approved fonts, tone-of-voice guidelines, and an existing brand guide if one exists. Chasing these after kick-off delays the first deliverable.
Project setup. Creating the folder structure, project-tracking board, shared document workspace, and billing method before work starts prevents administrative scramble later. Confirm the invoice-approval contact and payment terms explicitly.
First-30-days milestones. This section nudges you to commit to a visible deliverable within the first two weeks — something the client can see and react to that builds momentum and demonstrates competence. The 30-day review then provides a structured checkpoint before the relationship becomes routine.
Why a repeatable checklist matters
Studies of professional services client relationships consistently show that churn is highest in the first 90 days. The clients who leave early do so because they do not feel confident the agency understood what they needed, is organised, or is going to deliver. A thorough onboarding process directly addresses that anxiety — it signals preparation and professionalism before any work has been done.
A checklist also protects the agency. When a client later claims something was never discussed or agreed, the completed onboarding checklist documents exactly what was covered, shared, and confirmed.