Closing the deal is only half the battle

But what happens once you onboard a new client?

Many times, clients come to me because they want to accelerate and simplify their sales pipeline.

And I’m happy to help them with that.

But what most brands don’t realize is that what happens AFTER the deal is signed is just as important.

That’s the challenge my client, a branding agency, needed my help with.

Before working with me, this is what they did:

??Once they started onboarding a new client, they had to assign it to the right team members (they opened a Google Sheet for the writers, and a Monday sheet for the designers) and give them access to the project data - but not everyone needed access to ALL the data.?

??They also had a Google Sheet where they copied and pasted the commission assigned to the salesperson who closed the deal after 14 days.

??There were also multiple complex forms that ran both internally and were also sent out to clients. When they got any new data in, someone still had to copy and paste the answers into the relevant Sheets (again, in two separate systems!), and make sure that every person who worked on the project only got the data that they needed to see.

It was a mess.?

At their stage of growth, they couldn’t allow spending the same amount of headspace and time it cost them to keep doing the same things.?

They knew they needed better processes to streamline everything, so data would be shared faster, and so that important information wouldn’t fall between the cracks.

I did my usual deep dive and found what they liked about every process and tool they used, what they didn’t like, and what they wanted to be improved.

I learned that they liked their forms tool (I wasn't a fan of it, but it served them well and that is what is important). But they didn’t use crucial functions it already had, like exporting entire forms as a PDF with a click of a button or integrating them with their other systems, so the data would automatically appear elsewhere.?

I also learned that they wanted to have different views with certain data for each team member (for example, writers couldn’t have access to sensitive client data filled in the form). Their previous tool, Monday, couldn’t give them exactly what they needed with the capabilities it had back then.

We created a simple process for organizing and moving data:

??Each team member got their own dashboard on Airtable [affiliate link] with access only to the data they needed to get the job done, and an option to upload files too.

??We created a table for commissions and connected it to their other systems, so no one needed to copy and paste the information man****y two weeks after the deal was signed.

??When a form needed to be sent out to a client, we created a process that sent the right form based on the type of project they had with a few clicks. If the team member who sent the form selected multiple choices (because the project was more complex), the form would change accordingly, as well as the email template that it was sent with.

??Once the form was filled out and sent back to the agency, the new data was fed back into their database. If a specific question was relevant to designers who worked on this project, for example, they would see the answer to it in their dashboard. If the question wasn’t relevant to their part of the job, the answer wouldn’t appear in their project view.

??We also created a different dashboard for project managers, who could now see who is doing what, and at which stage they’re at.

When you have such a clear process and systems in place, it’s much easier to see how each project is progressing. And it allows you the space to grow your business sustainably.

~ Irit.

P.S. That project was more complex than what it would’ve been today because the tools are constantly improving. Some of the native integrations simply didn’t exist and we had to find a way around them.

But even now, we have to make sure that we know our tools and what they can help us with. There’s no point in moving to or adding another tool to our tech stack before we maximize the capabilities of our existing tools.

P.P.S. Whenever you’re ready to simplify your processes and make more headspace for your sustainable business growth, I’m here to help.