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Business success is dependent on a solid financial foundation & success looks different to everyone & there is a lack of equity of access to resources and information for small business owners and independent contractors & there is a societal narrative making us believe “balance” is our ultimate goal & … There are so many “&”s that impact being your own boss. Let’s have some frank discussions on the basics of business with a holistic focus on everything that helps business owners define and find success.
Molly Beyer: [00:00:08] Welcome to The Ambiguous &: Business Basics and Beyond, the podcast where we have frank discussions on the basics of business with a holistic focus on everything that helps business owners define and find success. Each episode is a reminder that success isn't one thing, it's a whole lot of ambiguous ands. Like, subscribe, or follow, and let's explore these ambiguous ands.
Molly Beyer: [00:00:35] Hello and welcome to The Ambiguous &: Business Basics and Beyond. I'm your host, Molly Beyer, and I'm here to lead you through frank and holistic conversations on the basics of business. Today, we're kicking off the 'Systems That Save Sanity' series with one of the most foundational systems in your business: client onboarding. I want to start today with a story, because if I've learned anything in working with overwhelmed business owners, it's that systems aren't just checkboxes, they're emotional anchors. They protect your energy, your clarity, and your ability to deliver excellent work. I still remember the moment I realized that my onboarding system wasn't a nice to have, but a lifeline. Years ago, I had multiple new clients sign on right after each other. On paper it really looked like a win, but behind the scenes, I was scrambling. I was searching for the same forms that I'd sent the week before. I was rewriting that same welcome email for the 10th time, wondering if I had told one client something that then I forgot to tell the next. And in that moment, surrounded by sticky notes and tabs open on every screen, and coffee that had gone cold, I realized this isn't what success should feel like.
Molly Beyer: [00:01:49] That moment really changed everything, and that's what today is all about. Client onboarding isn't just a process. It's really that first impression; it's that expectation setter and the foundation for the entire client relationship.
[00:02:04] Here's what a good onboarding system gives you. It really gives you clarity because your clients understand exactly what to expect and how the relationship they're entering into is going to work. It gives you consistency because you stop repeating yourself over again, reinventing the wheel for every new client. It also gives you professionalism because your clients feel taken care of, which builds trust. And most importantly, it gives you calm because you eliminate 90% of that stress that comes from, "Did I send that? Did I? Did they get that? What comes next?". Most importantly, a strong onboarding system aligns with the way that you want to work. It's your values, your energy, your bandwidth, and your intention. There's no way to build an onboard like an onboarding system. There's not a right way to build any of the systems that we're going to talk about. The only way that supports you best is what supports you best. This is somewhere I see people getting stuck, because they're either trying to mirror someone else's way of doing something, or they watched a YouTube video or read an article and decided that that was just going to be the thing that they did.
[00:03:16] But as with a lot of things, this is reflection, it's review, and it's revising as time goes on. But each of our systems that we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about three different approaches for you to choose from, and then sometimes somewhere in between. We are going to talk about manual systems, software driven systems and AI assisted systems. When we're talking about client onboarding, our first part of the system we're going to talk about is manual onboarding.This is perfect for early stage businesses or anyone who really likes or needs a super personal touch in this process. Something like this might be a welcome packet, either physical or a PDF, that outlines key information that a client should know, the expectations of them and of you, and then what the next steps are. It's also maybe a simple checklist that you reuse for each new client, just to make sure that you have hit all of those key things that need to get done. And maybe it's a folder of email templates that you can copy and paste when needed, and then maybe just change a little bit of wording. So this approach is really grounded. It's intentional. It keeps you really close to that client experience. The second way that you can come at this system is in a software driven space. This is really great for people who need speed or automation or fewer moving parts or have a business that can be highly systematized. Your clients are getting the exact same thing each time.
Molly Beyer: [00:04:49] There's a lot of tools like Honeybook, Dubsado, Bonzai. There are similar things like that that you can use for contracts, even payments, forms, and workflows. Those are by no means all of them. You can use things like Calendly or any scheduling tool for booking welcome calls, Google Forms or Typeform, things like that for collecting intake information. Software can really help build that seamless, repeatable experience, and it really does give you hours back that you didn't know that you were using. Then we talk about the AI assisted opportunities here for onboarding clients. AI can really become your quiet behind the scenes assistant. You can have it do things like drafting your welcome emails, generate step-by-step checklists for you, suggest responses to some common questions, and you can even have it create intake forms or reminders. This approach really keeps you in control while still reducing your workload. You also do still need to build in touchpoints to your system because your onboard system isn't. It's never going to be a 'set it and forget it' thing. It's always going to be a living process, so you really want to set that time to review. You want to have a weekly review to check for any pending onboarding steps. You really want to ensure that clients have completed any forms or scheduled any meetings that you had sent them to do. Monthly review you want to do to audit. Did all these clients complete their onboarding fully and smoothly? You can maybe even ask for some feedback if you feel comfortable doing that. Quarterly review again, if there's any feedback you've received, review that, then reflect back.
Molly Beyer: [00:06:30] Where were the hiccups? What didn't go well? What did we have to update through this time and then take a time to audit and update any forms or emails or any steps as needed from that reflection. Then there's this secret fourth option, which is combining all of these different approaches to really make it feel authentic to you. So I'm still a recovering Luddite. I have definitely embraced and grown with some of the technologies, but I do still struggle giving over too much to automation, so it took me a really long time to also be okay with AI, so the sweet spot for me has been automation with many personal touch points and also using an AI to sort of support the efforts. So an example for me, I use go high level as a CRM and have a lead pipeline that leads me from basically contact to onboarding. But my clients all sort of have different situations, so I can't fully automate things like pricing, proposals, contracts, things like that. So I have the pipeline automation, but I have to physically move people through. But then when they get to a new stage, it does populate things like tasks and templates that really ease through that process and reduces a significant amount of time. I also use AI tools to help me clean up my emails. If you can't tell, I tend to get a little verbose, so this feels really like an excellent and complete way of communication for me. But for a lot of people, the way that I talk and type and things like that, it's just too much. So I need simple sentences. I need simple bullet points. And that's really, really hard for me to do. So I run my crazy long onboarding emails through AI to help make them make more sense to more people. So you can really use those tools to help you in those spaces. But you can also use things like AI to help draft those emails for you. And then you just use that template to make it your own.
[00:08:39] So now we're going to get to a little bit of a fun part. In the episode description for this episode and then the next four, you're going to find a link to a workbook that's going to go along with the series to help guide you through the start of your systems. So each episode of the series will include a simple stretch. It's not homework, it's not pressure. It's a supportive shift for you in building your systems. So for onboarding we're going to have two. First, use an AI tool to draft your next full welcome sequence. Don't perfect it, just get a version one on the page, and then add one new automation like a reminder email, a form, or a templated message because these tiny changes are going to compound into big gains for you.
Molly Beyer: [00:09:28] So the specific worksheets for this episode talking about client onboarding are going to include a full onboarding checklist, manual software and AI options, where we're going to review touchpoints, the growth stretch that we're going to do, and then you're going to have a notes and reflections section. Because again, we always want to be reflecting on what we've learned about what we've done in the past and what we're doing now. So we're going to use this to build a system that supports you. And again, not the version that you think you should have, but the version that meets you where you are today. Because onboarding is where chaos meets opportunity, but really only if you allow yourself to step into clarity, because your business deserves that and you deserve that.
[00:10:14] So in the next episode of 'Systems That Save Sanity', we're going to build on this foundation and continue creating a business that supports you, your success, your intentions, and your peace. So thanks so much for hanging out with us today. We'd love to hear your feedback on today's episode, as well as any requests for future content. Drop a comment or suggestion and join us next time for more frank and holistic conversations on the basics of business. Please also like, subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode. And until next time, I am Molly Beyer and this has been The Ambiguous &: Business Basics and Beyond. Have a wonderful day!