If it feels like clients are in control of the whole fulfilment process and you keep extinguishing little fires that erupt and interrupt the whole creative process…

You are losing time, joy and money by not having client fulfillment standards and controls. So how do you set mutually beneficial business boundaries and rules?

Make them performance focused.

For marketing agencies that don’t care about their people (clients or team), it's super easy...

Some entrepreneurs can have clients who don’t do the work and super late with giving feedback as long as the client pays their invoice. These entrepreneurs sleep well at night without an ounce of guilt.

But when "Marketing Agency Sue" tries that model, she loses time, money, rest and joy. She follows-up and firefights client and team issues she doesn’t want to put energy into. When the client finally stops switching up their ideas and does the work, she runs herself (her team) ragged to meet the initial deadline.

Because business owners like her who care about people, time freedom and their reputation, also want to make money and give their clients what they paid for.

So, to set and maintain business boundaries that set you up to grow your business and hire more people while emboldening your team to do client fulfillment without fleecing your clients…

You can't just set random business boundaries and rules. You need to make them mutually beneficial, and performance based. 🤯

There are only two obstacles to this:

1. Most business boundaries can feel one-sided and selfish. It’s either the business owner’s needs are met or your clients’. It’s rarely both. 🥺

2. Reinforcing a boundary with a paying client feels scary and causes inner friction especially when you feel you have to pull out the big guns right out the gate. 🤦🏽‍♀️😏

So how do you get around these two obstacles:

🎯1. Map out all the steps you and your clients need to take to get from where they are to your goal. Set deadlines for each step. Know what is impacted if each step is not completed on time.

This is why adding random value-added videos and resources doesn’t work – they minimize the importance of your boundary to you and your clients.

Let's say in one step, Marketing Agency Sue needs her clients to submit their brand assets like colors and logo after the onboarding call.

Deadline – One week after the onboarding call

Impact of Missing Deadline (why her clients should care) – The design phase for the website cannot begin. This impacts the overall deadline for completing the website (affecting the client’s launch date).

🎯2. Then pinpoint steps that must be finished on time to meet the overall project end date (they are on the critical path!). Set rewards (optional but increases client engagement) and up to 3 progressive preventative actions you’ll take to ensure the deadline is not missed. And 1 action you'll take if the deadline is missed. Then get proactive about communicating the step, its deadline and the impact of meeting/missing it.

Reward if Deadline is met: Send a congratulatory email or communication. Highlight progress and what’s next.

Progressive Action #1: Add to your contract. Then communicate step, deadline and impact during onboarding call and pre-boarding notifications.

Progressive Action #2: Send reminder 2 days after the onboarding call. Highlight deadline and the impact if deadline is missed.

Progressive Action #3: Send final reminder on deadline date. Highlight that lack of submission means work will pause and not resume until resources become available again.

Action if Deadline is Missed: Pause work and reassign resources. Of course, if it does get to that stage, you have to be willing to enforce that standard/boundary/rule.

3. Do steps 1 & 3 when it comes to any business policies you have (e.g. payments, response times, etc.). Focus on defining what happens if the business standard is violated and the progressive actions you’ll take to prevent a recurrence.

Doesn’t that feel like an unselfish caring mutual needs-honoring approach?

Once you have these standards and controls, you can easily manage client projects and performance, prevent or handle fires that can interrupt the creative process and manage team performance...

Mutually beneficial standards and controls are what actually allows you to maintain the structure of your streamlined client fulfilment process in ways that honor YOUR NEEDS and YOUR CLIENTS’ NEEDS. Set and maintain those rules, so you finally have the structure that allows you to automate client and project management, hire more team and have days off without your business falling apart...

To wrap up:

You now know that if you are not an entrepreneur who is in just for the money, your path to more money, joy, time and rest isn't to screw over your clients or burn your business to the ground...

You need 3 things -> Engaging Journey + Prepared Clients + Standards & Controls

Once you have the three of them, your client fulfilment becomes streamlined and can be automated and handed over to new hires, so you grow your business with less of you in it...

Without them, it's a lot harder. That said, I appreciate you following through with this series.

So what's next?

If you loved the series and want to deliver your services and have more time freedom without ripping off your clients or sacrificing results or the quality of the experience...  Let's create EPIC Streamlined Client Fulfillment Processes Together.

Book a call to talk about how we can help you streamline client fulfilment so you can finally deliver your services with less work and stop being the bottleneck in your business.

Read the full "Streamlining Client Fulfilment" Series below.

Here is Part 1: The Key to Streamlining Duct-taped Client Fulfillment So It Needs Less Of You In It

Here is Part 2: Getting High Client and Team Engagement with Less Work During Fulfillment

Here is Part 3: Working with Clients Who Follow Your Process and Get Results with Less Work

Here is Part 4 (this post): Keeping the momentum to results without constantly extinguishing little unnecessary client and team fires

Be amazing,

Danielle & Chanel