Your client just signed their contract and made a deposit to work with you. They’re excited, maybe a little nervous. Waiting for that first official experience inside your process…onboarding.
For most designers, it’s an email. Maybe a PDF. Maybe a link to a Dubsado or HoneyBook portal they half-customized two years ago and haven’t touched since.
But that first experience sets the tone for everything that follows.
The client who feels taken care of from day one trusts the process faster. It affirms their decision to invest in you and makes them feel like they’re already getting their money’s worth.
Your onboarding process is a deliverable. And it should be treated like one.
This is exactly what I'm showing you how to build live in the next AI Maker workshop. You’ll see inside our exact onboarding hub and how to create your own premium onboarding experience for your clients.
LIVE
How to Build a Premium Client Onboarding Experience
That adds value to your service & positions you as a top-tier service provider.
Tuesday, June 9 @ 1pm PST
Our onboarding at ByAriel does five specific things…
The client has signed, paid, and earned access to the part of your world nobody else gets access to. The welcome they receive should FEEL like that. Viscerally different from every other creative experience they’ve had. The design, the tone, the copy should all say the same thing… “you’re an insider now”.
Clients get anxious when they don’t know what’s coming. Inside your onboarding, you should be providing a clear walkthrough of every project phase, what happens in each one, and roughly how long it takes. They should never have to email you asking “so what’s next?”
How you communicate and when. When they can expect project updates. How feedback gets submitted and in what timeframe. Deliverable timelines and feedback windows. All of it belongs in the onboarding. A client who knows communication runs through email, Monday through Friday, with a 48-hour response window, is a completely different client than the one DMing you on Instagram on a Saturday.
Before the work starts, your client has a handful of things to complete. The brand intake questionnaire. Scheduling their strategy session. Any decisions that need to be made before the project kicks off. The onboarding walks them through each one in sequence, clearly enough that they move from step to step with total confidence about what comes next.
Your onboarding is also a low-pressure moment to show clients what else is possible, like collateral add-ons or scope expansions. They’re already in the mindset of investing in their brand which makes this the perfect opportunity to show them what they could add.
A client who moves through a beautifully built, thoughtfully guided experience walks into their first strategy session already trusting you. More open and more excited.
Every client you take on goes through your onboarding. Every single one. It’s the most consistent touchpoint in your entire business, and you get to design every part of it like it matters just as much as their actual design.
This is exactly what I’m showing you how to build live in the next AI Maker workshop. You’ll see inside our exact onboarding hub and how to create your own premium onboarding experience for your clients.
See you there!
xx,
Ariel
I run a creative agency. I’ve done the $40k projects and the $2k ones. I know this industry from real wins and even realer failures. I’ve coached 3,000+ other designers on how to turn their skills into a real, money-making career. And it’s all yours for $7/month.
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