Running the client side of a job: onboarding, briefs, approvals, and expectations that still hold once the work is underway.
October 1, 2026
Every client has now asked some version of 'what should we be doing with AI.' You don't need to be an AI shop to answer well. You need to know their business, which you already do, and a small first project you can actually deliver.
September 16, 2026
Replace the weekly status meeting with a written update built from one source of truth. Lead with what changed and what is next, and flag anything you need so approvals do not become the bottleneck.
August 5, 2026
A good kickoff turns the proposal into a shared plan before anyone produces work. Confirm the exact deliverables, the revision rounds, the effort assumptions, and who actually approves things, then write down what you agreed.
June 10, 2026
Onboard from a repeatable checklist so kickoff, access, and setup run as tracked tasks instead of improvised work. Build it once with owners and due dates, then reuse it so the time is planned for.
April 15, 2026
Treat every client approval as a blocking deliverable with an owner and a due date. A Job waiting on sign-off then looks different from one that is moving, and you manage the wait instead of absorbing it.
March 4, 2026
Quote delivery dates built from your team's real capacity, not the client's hopes or your best-case day. Name the client's own role too, because every review and approval they owe sits on the critical path.
January 14, 2026
A brief prevents scope creep when it names the exact deliverables, the effort assumptions behind them, and what happens when something changes. Scope creep grows in the gaps nobody wrote down or counted.
October 2, 2024
Most agencies do not need a full CRM. They need to stop dropping opportunities and losing context between selling and delivering. A light way to track companies, people, and opportunities, connected to the work, beats it.
July 7, 2023
Retainers expand quietly because small asks never hit a decision point. Agree what the retainer covers in effort, log every request against it, and when the work drifts past the line, trigger a reset.
April 25, 2023
When the people on the client side disagree with each other, the work stalls in the gap. Surface the conflict early, get one decision-maker named, and attach decisions in writing to the work itself.
April 3, 2023
A useful debrief compares plan to reality: estimated against actual effort by deliverable, where the timeline slipped, and which scope changes got captured. Skip the vague what-went-well and study the gaps.
December 18, 2022
Client delays are the most common cause of blown timelines, and the fix is structural, not confrontational. Track when work is waiting on the client, make that wait visible, and agree upfront what a delay costs.
October 13, 2022
Contractors work best inside your system, not emailed around it. Give them the Jobs and Tasks they own and let them log effort where the work happens, and you keep one picture of who is doing what.
September 25, 2022
Agency cash flow swings because delivery drifts and payments lag, and the two compound. You cannot fix the bank timing, but you can see delivery drift early, and that half sits inside your control.
