David A. Fields Consulting Group The 7 Steps to Take Immediately After Your Consulting Firm Wins a Project
“Sunny day. Sweepin’ the clouds away.” These opening words to a classic TV theme song are an apt description of how you feel when a client says “Yes” to a project. (Extra points if you name the TV show.)
The hours immediately after you close an engagement present a huge opportunity that many consulting firms squander.
A powerful onboarding process will…
- …set the stage for an enjoyable, low-stress project.
- …minimize the chance of potholes and maximize the likelihood of success.
- …tee up the next project for your consulting firm.
- …satisfy multiple people’s chocolate cravings.
With so many benefits on the line, it’s well worth ensuring your consulting firm’s onboarding process is fully systemized.
Hence, while you’re giddily singing, “We won the project!” your firm’s client onboarding process should kick into gear, starting with the seven steps discussed below.
7 Immediate Steps for Your Client Onboarding Process
Congratulations Letter
Email a congratulations letter within an hour of receiving approval to the engagement. If you don’t already have a template for your congratulations letter, set one up now.
- Congratulate your client on moving forward and reassure them that they have made a great decision.
- Communicate excitement.
- Outline the next steps.
- Assign the client immediate tasks.
Information Request
Include an information request with your congratulations letter.
On virtually every project you’ll need additional information from your client, and your consulting firm should have a standard information request checklist that you can tailor to each particular engagement.
Gathering information counts as one of the immediate client tasks that signals to the client that the project is off to a good start.
Information Sharing
Set up some sort of shared access for information and, if necessary, for project management. Forward the login/access details within a day or two of project approval.
Dropbox, Sharepoint or a similar platform works for information exchanges. Some consulting firms use project management platforms such as Basecamp or Asana.
There are cases when collaborative project management platforms add value; however, they can also unnecessarily over-complicate a project and detract from your client’s perception of value.
There’s a good chance your consulting firm can can communicate project management to your client with a simple Google document, shared spreadsheet, or Miro board.
Progress Tracker
Within one week, confirm the indicators of project success and put mechanisms in place with your client to measure progress. Even qualitative indicators of progress can be captured and tracked. A few of the benefits:
- Your trackers generate early warning signals of any projects veering off track.
- The visible evidence of progress on your trackers makes for happy clients and strong testimonials.
- You’ll produce fodder for scorecards, which are a huge boon when selling follow-on work.
Feedback Loop
Within the first couple of days, agree with the client on how and when you will receive their assessment of how the project is faring. (Their perception may be quite different from what your progress tracker indicates.)
For any project longer than three months, build in monthly check-ins with the project sponsor and a formal QA survey roughly 6-10 weeks into the project.
A strong feedback loop ensures you surface issues before they bloom into problems and facilitate tailoring your project on the fly to meet your client’s needs.
Fieldwork
On virtually every engagement, the results you deliver will improve if you interview senior executives early on.
Start scheduling those interviews during the first week of the project, casting as wide a net as possible. Customers, vendors and competitors are also excellent targets. The advantage of wide-ranging interviews include:
- Improved likelihood to surface information that will lead to a successful project.
- Broader perception of “dust flying.”
- Exposure to additional decision-makers with their own problems that (not coincidentally) your consulting firm is perfectly positioned to help!
Invoice
Ask for the money!
Presumably a large portion of your consulting fees are due on agreement, therefore you can include your first invoice with your congratulations letter.
There’s no reason for the first few days of a project to be haphazard.
Build an onboarding process that includes the seven items above, and whether you’re as grouchy as Oscar or as loveable as Kermit, everything will be A-OK.
What else do you (or should you) do within days of winning a new project?
Text and images are © 2024 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
David, you are spot on!
Speaking from firsthand experience in utilizing your advice, “making the dust fly” is a great way to cement the feeling they made the right decision to hire you.
It is also a way to differentiate yourself with the client from other consultants who did not start as strong or quickly.
Hopefully, this is the first of multiple engagements with the new client, and “making the dust fly” is a *wonderful* way to start!
Great point, Mike. Your early action on an engagement reassures the client that they’ve made a great decision and, interestingly, this is often a time when they are very open to additional, adjacent engagements.
Thank you for lending your experience to the conversation, Mike!
Valuable content, David. Thank you.
You’re quite welcome, Seth. I appreciate the feedback.
David, great list and super timely for me as I just won a new project this week. Will put the 7 recommendations in practice !!
I like how you say that a platform can add value or distract the client – so true !!
I find Notion can do both: be just a simple google doc (with no signin friction) or a more exhaustive portal that grows with the work. Not just holding the deliverables; but being the deliverables in a wider sense (more integrated and interactive).
So far my experience is that simpler is better for the client; but a more complex workspace for the team helps distill a more meaningful and personalised summary for the client and all.
Congratulations on the new project, Patrice! Also, great point about Notion. Quite a few of our clients use Notion and find it to be an outstanding platform. It’s not for everyone, but can be a huge boon for some folks and, used correctly, can enhance your client interaction.
Let me know how your onboarding works out with the new engagement, and thank you for letting me know!
Perfect timing. I just received verbal communication for a new six month project. I have sent the contract (and the first invoice) and am waiting for signage. would you suggest waiting for contract signage before proceeding with these materials. I usually don’t start until the contract is signed. The work is due to begin next week.
That’s outstanding news, Mandy. Woo hoo on a six-month engagement!
Whether you jump into onboarding immediately or wait until you have a signed contract depends on how well you know the client and how reliable they are. If this is your fourth engagement in a row with a client, and they’ve always come through with a signature, then there’s no need to wait. Typically, with new clients with whom you have little history, the best practice when you receive verbal approval is to send a, “Sounds great, please sign the proposal” email then wait until you have a signature before jumping into onboarding.
On future engagements, you may also consider waiting until you’ve received a signature before sending an invoice–you don’t want the stark reality of an invoice halting the pen as it descends toward the signature line.
I appreciate your sharing the good news, Mandy, and asking an insightful question too. Well done!
Great point on the flow of signature, then invoice! I need to update that process for my next project. 😁
Thank you for taking the time to reply. It’s not my first time at the rodeo, but it’s been a while as I had (lucky me) two 4-5-year retainers. They were with government bodies, so it was a different approach. I was mostly led by them.
It’s my first time working with this particular client. I will wait until everything is signed before I onboard them, just in case. I appreciate your thoughts on this! Thank you!
Very impressive, Mandy. Multi-year retainers are great for creating stability. If you’re shifting from government clients to commercial clients, you may find a very significant difference in how they buy, how they contract, and how they pay. Let me know how the onboarding turns out!
Great content, thank you. I have a signed agreement with a future start date and will implement this at the start date.
Dust will fly!
Outstanding, Brian! Congratulations on the new agreement (hooray), and good luck on the onboarding. Please let me know how it goes.