You’ve just closed a new sale for your small business.

Vibes are high and you’re on Cloud 9.

You’re excited, the customer is excited – but now it’s time to follow up on the promises you made during the marketing and sales phase.

As you “switch caps” from sales to operations/output, however you find yourself always behind on getting started with your project or service.

It’s something even the most experienced small businesses struggle with – the handoff from sales to operations – especially if services or projects are customized (or made-to-order).

There’s a critical step that may be missing from your small business: your onboarding/scheduling process.

While onboarding is not a new concept by any means, and you may have heard it used more for employees (employee onboarding) – it’s also a great system for getting your customer/clients up transitioned from the sale to project/service start smoothly.

If you’ve followed along in this blog for long enough, you know that I’m a bit of a mathematics nerd (a creature of habit), so I tend to make connections to that world more often than not.

Mathematical functions (systems) are something you should get familiar with.

The word ‘function’ may sound complex, but it’s actually really simple: it’s something that takes an input and creates an output.

That’s it.

The onboarding function, then, takes the input from a converted sale (a specific service or project) and creates – as the output – a list of items or resources needed to start that project and service.

This process (function) is likely different for each project type or service you provide, but the idea is the same: make sure your service or project team is 100% prepared and has everything they need to start that service or project for your customer/client – A-to-Z.

The Onboarding/Scheduling Delta: The Critical Bridge From Sales To Operations

“If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”

-Benjamin Franklin

While one of my mantras is “there is no failure, only data” (and how you use that data to improve), that doesn’t mean you should aimlessly step into failure to create data – especially with your onboarding process.

For many small business owners, converting a sale is a very exciting time – but not following through with a proper onboarding process can leave customers with a less-than-satisfying experience.

That poor experience often comes in the form of not being prepared to start a service or project – and you end up with miscommunication, unnecessary back-and-forths between your team as they don’t have the right resources, delays in start time – and ultimately a disappointed customer/client.

To help you tighten things up, here are some gaps in the “Onboarding/Scheduling Delta” to review:

0. Start With A Rock-Solid Schedule (Capacity Planning)
1. Create A Definitive Checklist Of Inputs (Resources) To Start Each Service Or Project Type
2. Communicate Clear Service/Project Scheduling Expectations – And Keep Them
3. Gather Feedback From Your Service/Project Team

If you’re unclear or miss some of these steps, your “Onboarding Delta” (gap or distance) is large – which increases the chances that something will be missed and your service/project may not be seamless for your customer.

As you start to tighten up these gaps, your “Onboarding Delta” slowly goes to zero — and your odds of creating a seamless service/project experience will go up.

Start With A Rock-Solid Schedule (Capacity Planning)

Something that many small business owners miss is that time is limiting resource – there are only so many hours in a day so you have to be incredibly sharp and precise with your schedule.

I touched on this briefly in a previous blog post about how math is often the thing that holds most small businesses back, but I mention how knowing your capacity is vital to everything else “upstream” in your business – from how much to spend on marketing, to how many leads and sales you need.

And understanding your capacity starts with creating a rock-solid schedule (or set working hours) for your small business.

If you don’t have set working hours, you’ll end up with a work schedule that’s all over the place – and eventually unmanageable as you start to grow.

Related to onboarding, having a rock-solid working schedule allows your onboarding process to set rock-solid expectations (more on that below) on when a service/project will begin (and/or be completed).

Create A Definitive Checklist Of Inputs (Resources) To Start Each Service Or Project

Likely the most important “gap” in the Onboarding Delta list, for every service or project you perform through your business, create a definitive list of inputs (resources) you need for the project or service to start.

Resources can be anything from a list of employees or subcontractors (and associated hours – again, capacity planning), to raw materials (and material vendors if you don’t keep materials in stock), to tools & other supplies — literally everything your service/project needs to get started on-time.

Your checklist can also include items you need from your customer or client — access to property/building, power, additional paperwork, availability if they need to be present during the service/project – anything you need from their side for your service/project team.

Even if you’re solo and have everything memorized – if you plan on growing, you’re going to need this list so that when other folks start to help you with your business, they’ll know exactly what they need to get started – every time.

Communicate (Often) And Set Clear Expectations – And Keep Them

There should be communication for every step in the chain, starting immediately after a sale is made for your small business.

Whether your service is one-time or on-going, or you have a project that’s broken down into stages (called milestones) – during the onboarding phase you want to make sure there are clear expectations on when they can expect everything to be started and completed.

While this might be a bit of an overlap with a project manager, it’s still important to map out the scheduling with your client/customer – your project/service team will thank you later.

Gather Feedback From Your Service/Project Team

Especially important if you work on customized projects or services, make sure and gather feedback from your service/project team.

Even if it’s a small detail missed that slowed down the start time of the project/service, it’s something that you can easily add to your input/resource list for future reference.

The Only Goal For Onboarding

The one and only goal for onboarding is to setup your service/project delivery team – that’s it.

For many small businesses, onboarding may be something that is “second nature” (especially for solo folks) – something you might not think about because you’ve done so many projects or performed those services so many times before.

As mentioned above, however, if you’re serious about growing your small business, your onboarding process is vital – especially as you start taking on simultaneous projects/services (where you’ll have to share limited resources).

If you don’t have this process nailed down, there’s a good chance it will be an additional bottleneck (something that will slow you down) for you as you grow.

Unlike other bottlenecks, however, the onboarding process is something that can be felt directly by your customers/clients: as you stumble with getting started, the project/service gets delayed (and you can come off as disorganized) – ultimately leading to missed expectations.

The Onboarding Process & Connection To Digital Marketing

As with almost every system inside your business, there are things that tie into digital marketing in your onboarding process.

Perhaps during scheduling you notice many customers have preferences for certain days or hours for that project/service (giving you clues on when you can promote certain projects or services).

Maybe you learn that your customers have preferences for certain materials (or if you work in the digital world, preferences for certain digital platforms), that allows your marketing team to promote that you work with those materials (or are compatible with those plaftorms).

Or during scheduling, you notice there are gaps in your schedule you can fill, which you can relay to your digital marketing folks that you have availability to fill.

There are very few things inside your small business that don’t connect back to your digital marketing efforts – onboarding included.