03 ⎸ Uplevel Your Client Onboarding

In this solo episode, I talk about two absolute game changers when it comes to your onboarding process.

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Transcript

03-Uplevel Your Client Onboarding

[00:00:00] 

Welcome back today. We are going to chat about upleveling, your onboarding game. This is a question that I see coming up a lot, a lot, a lot. Like what do I, how do I do this onboarding thing? I feel like I'm all over the place. The law. So in small business, it's really good to an important to maintain a good rapport with your clients, but it's just as important to grow your business and expand your client base if you're [00:01:00] trying to grow.

Right. So this means going through the process of onboarding new clients, and this is where people get really hung up and feel like they don't have a good process. They are lacking information things take forever. So let's chat through this. The good news is onboarding. Doesn't have to be scary. Um, but some of the concerns I see a lot are like, I don't know what information to ask for when I sign a new client and what steps do I take with a new client?

And what if I don't get anything, everything I need, um, most likely you won't get everything you need. So just go into it, knowing that here's the thing, all of these are important, but these concerns can be narrowed down into two important goals. Setting expectations and asking good questions. Why? Because these things will build trust, which is very, very important in our [00:02:00] profession.

And at the same time, it will set back. Right. Okay. So let's talk about setting client expectations, and this is all going to roll into how well you feel you've onboarded your client. What? Yes. There's going to be a lot of unknowns. Yes. You're probably going to miss asking for a few things, but if we can back it up a little bit and set some good expectations for our clients and ask good questions, then we'll we'll, we'll get a little further.

And do a little better. So one lesson I learned the hard way was not setting expectations with new clients right away. In fact, the expectations should show up in three places. So if you are doing other things, I want you to stop for a second. Come back to me here. And maybe write this down. Discovery call conversations is place number one, where you need to start setting [00:03:00] expectations place.

Number two is writing it in your engagement letter place. Number three is more conversations during onboarding. You can never. Set too many. I mean like you could set too many expectations I guess, but you can't reiterate it enough. Like you just need to make sure that they are aware of the process. So not only does this set you up for success, it also means less chance for resentment on your end, toward the client and difficult conversations down the line.

Trust me from someone I, someone who has been down this road and made these mistakes before. And the best part is this will help build the trust right away. Your clients will see you as a professional and are less likely to treat you like an employee after all. We're not going into business for ourselves just to be treated as an employee.

Can I get an amen?

So what kind of [00:04:00] expectations should we be setting? And I'm just going to give you a few ideas, but it ultimately is up to you and the types of engagements you're going to have and the types of clients you're going to be working with and how many boundaries you actually need to set depending on the type of client you're working with.

So many of these things just really go back to like the type of client you're working with, but here's a few ideas. How often you'll be working on their stuff. Like how often can they expect updated books? How long will onboarding take? I honestly, like I used to feel very rushed with onboarding and I felt like it needed to happen quickly, but it doesn't.

And you can set that expectation with the client for sure. If we sign a new client on near the beginning of a month, or like at the very end of one month. And we're about to go into month end for all the rest of our clients. I set the expectation that we're probably not going to touch [00:05:00] onboarding yours.

For two weeks, we're not going to even start it for two weeks and then it might take us several eight weeks to complete onboarding you. I actually have one client right now. It's, it's taken almost three months to onboard them for various reasons. But the key here is just setting the expectation that it could take longer than they expect.

Okay. So another example is how frequently you'll be sending them updates. So are you agreeing to. Update them weekly or update their books weekly and chat with them weekly. Are you agreeing to just update, update them monthly? Those expectations need to be set that way. They understand how often they can expect to hear from you and communicate with them about their books.

Okay. Another example is which days you have office hours. You know, specifically, if you have only certain days for appointments, um, or you have certain days that you'll be working on their stuff. I know this is how a lot of bookkeepers [00:06:00] manage a large client load. They have specific days set aside for certain client work.

So say you have client A's a, B and C threes, three different lines, right? You might work on clients A and B on Mondays and client C on Tuesdays, because it's a bigger client might take all day. So setting those expectations with them is probably good that way they can expect to hear from you on the days that you're working on their account to answer their questions.

Um, and then if you have some non-negotiables that you need to bring up with potential clients, uh, I would love. To hear. So I share on Instagram, DM me snap, a pic of this episode, tag me. I want to know if you have some certain non-negotiables that, um, that you set some expectations you set with clients.

Uh, another one that we set with ours is that they'll [00:07:00] have the reports by the 15th, and then most of the time we deliver them by the 10th. So it makes us look really great. Um, okay. So let's get into asking good questions. One of the common concerns that we talked about earlier was what if I don't get all the information I need at the beginning?

Spoiler alert news flash. The answer is you probably won't, but that's okay. I wouldn't spend so much time trying to prove yourself. You're there to make things easier for your client. So don't be afraid to ask more questions. If you don't understand something, um, something. You know, quote that I've found online, successful people ask better questions and as a result, they get better answers.

So another way of putting this, um, the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. So kind of the same thing, like the quality of your client relationships is determined by the quality of your questions. So if you ask them good questions, you're going to [00:08:00] get more information and be able to.

Better with them. So you might feel like this makes you look stupid, but in reality, we rarely get all the pieces to the puzzle and don't know we might need something until after we've dug in a little. So pictures. And you're battling with trying to figure out a large deposit in the bank statement. You finally decide to just ask the client, what was this $10,000 deposit from?

And then they reply, oh, I put some more money into the business. However, when you onboard them, you never received or asked for their formation documents. So now you're not really sure how this contribution should actually be handled. Should it be alone? Should it be paid in capital or owner's contribution?

The answer depends on those formation documents. And nine times out of 10, if the clients set up their own books, they probably have not accounted for their opening balances correctly. And most of the time a business owner doesn't understand how their business structure affects how things should be accounted for.

So let's do a little [00:09:00] recap of today's episode. I hope you found this useful, helpful by the way. Um, and of course, These expectations and questions. It really you'll gain more experience. The more you do it, do this, but I do actually help you with all of this. I have a couple resources. I have a course called onboarding on autopilot.

It's a mini course. It strictly goes over. Onboarding. There's a lot of resources in there. Um, I'm actually about to revamp the program and update it. And then I also have the bookkeeping business accelerator, which we dive into onboarding and all things, client work and, um, marketing and sales pricing, all that good stuff.

I invite you to check out my website and to see when the accelerator is opening again for enrollment, I do it in cohorts because it is a very high touch. Uh, we meet weekly, we have co-working sessions weekly. And, uh, [00:10:00] I like to just basically give my bookkeepers and accountants a hundred percent. And that is why it only opens once a quarter.

So we will be opening again. Uh, In the fall. So mark your calendars, keep an eye out for it. But if in the meantime, you're really struggling with onboarding. I encourage you to check out the onboarding on auto-pilot course. It is on my website, ambitious bookkeeper.com and you will find it right there on the front page.

So let's do a little recap on, on. Remember the two things you want to focus on when onboarding are setting expectations and asking good questions. That is the simplest form of onboarding. Of course, there's process involved. There's engagement letters. There's a systems, all that good stuff, which I can help you with as well.

But the main things I want you to take away from that is even with good [00:11:00] systems and, and process. They're going to fall apart. If you don't set expectations and ask the right questions. Okay. My friends that is all for today, I hope you found this useful. Don't forget to subscribe, share this podcast with some of your accounting buddies, um, and friends.

And I will talk to you next week. Bye.