Every month we run through a series of questions to help you run your freelance business like a bigger business—“self-coaching” your way to better results and a better
life.
Hey!
A lot can go wrong on a freelance project, but there’s one phase of the client relationship where you can get ahead of a good 90% of the issues that will throw things off…and that’s onboarding.
So for this COO month, we’re going to review a few onboarding questions that can help you avoid the most common freelance pitfalls…
- Do I have an SOP?
- Am I explaining how I work?
- Am I doing housekeeping?
- Am I addressing concerns?
Am I
doing housekeeping?
The onboarding phase is a great time to talk out the all the mechanics of a freelance relationship…things like:
- How you bill and how they pay (including how long it takes them to turn payment around)
- Vendor onboarding if applicable (it can be pretty extensive
for some clients)
- Where a contract needs to go and who needs to sign it
- Your best contact and backup contact (always get one of those)
- Whether you’ll need an NDA
The last thing you want to do is get into a project and find out they require an invoice through
their payment portal and you sent it via PayPal so you’re waiting months for thousands of dollars (ask me how I know 🙃).
If you want to talk out how to set up your housekeeping basics, come by the Academy Facebook group and let’s talk it out!
Megan