You know the pattern. The contract is signed, everyone is excited, and then the first week turns into a game of email tennis. Can you send the logo? Which login do I use? Who approves things on your side? By Friday you have fourteen threads and no clear picture of what you still need.
Onboarding is the one part of a client relationship you can fully plan in advance. Here is how to do it without the chain.
Step one: decide what you actually need
Start with the question, “What can I not begin without?” For most agencies and studios the answer is a short list:
- Access. Logins or permissions to the accounts you will work in.
- Brand assets. Logos, colors, fonts and any guidelines.
- Goals. What success looks like, in the client’s own words.
- People. Who you will talk to day to day, and who signs things off.
- Paperwork. A signed contract and billing details.
Everything else can wait for the kickoff call. Resist front-loading questions “just in case”. A short list gets completed. A long one gets postponed.
Step two: put it in one place
The email chain happens because there is no other home for the information. Create one. It might be a shared checklist, a client space, even a single shared document, as long as the client can see what is done, what is waiting and who owns it.
In BravaSpace, that home is the client’s own portal, with your branding on it. You add the client, choose which tabs they see, and send them one invite link. They set their own password and land on a space that already shows their first tasks. If you have not set one up before, our first client portal guide walks through every screen.
Step three: write one good welcome
The welcome message sets the tone. It should do four things and then stop:
- Say what happens in the first week, in three bullets.
- Link to the one place where everything lives.
- Name the two or three things you need first, and by when.
- Tell them who to contact and how quickly you will reply.
Keep it short enough to read on a phone between meetings. A hundred and fifty words is plenty.
Step four: a kickoff that settles the rest
Use the call to confirm what you already know and to agree the things that are hard to write down: how you like to give feedback, who has the final say, what happens when a deadline slips. Our kickoff agenda fits in 45 minutes and leaves ten minutes at the end for questions.
Write down the decisions during the call and share them within the hour. This one habit prevents more disagreements than any contract clause.
Step five: agree how you will talk
The cleanest way to avoid a chain is to say, up front, where each kind of conversation goes:
- Questions about the work go in the project thread, not in someone’s personal inbox.
- Anything that needs a decision is raised as an approval, so there is a clear yes or no on record.
- Files go in the shared library, not in attachments buried in replies.
- Invoices and contracts live with the client’s record.
Clients are usually relieved to be told. Most of them would rather not hunt through their email either.
A sample first week
| Day | You | Client |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Send the welcome and the link to their space. | Sign in, confirm contact details. |
| Day 2 | Chase nothing. Review what has arrived. | Upload brand assets, share access. |
| Day 3 | Kickoff call. Share notes within the hour. | Join the call, confirm goals. |
| Day 4 | Post the plan for the first month. | Read and comment. |
| Day 5 | Send a short end-of-week note. | Reply with anything missing. |
Common ways it goes wrong
- Asking for everything on day one. People freeze. Ask in the order you need things.
- Several people owning onboarding. Name one person on your side.
- Treating silence as a yes. If an item is stuck, say so plainly and offer to help.
- Skipping the recap. If it was agreed on a call and not written down, it was not agreed.
If you want a ready-made list to start from, copy the client onboarding checklist, change anything that does not fit, and send it with your welcome. The point is not to follow it perfectly. It is to stop holding the whole thing in your head.