You know the incredible feeling of signing a new client for a huge project. The energy is high in the office, your cash flow looks great, and you’re already imagining the new additions to your portfolio. Then your phone dings at 10pm, the client asks for “just one more thing”, and client meetings feel more like therapy sessions for the homeowner than actual productive time spent on the project. This can often be the unfortunate reality when you fail to set early boundaries with clients. And if you wait too long to set them, things can get even messier. In this article, we’ll share how to create an onboarding firewall, a deliberate 30-day operational standard that trains your client to respect your time, your sanity, and your profit margins.
Flexibility Kills Your Net Profit
You might think that being flexible and available around the clock would only make your business more desirable. But it can backfire badly. Extreme flexibility erodes your authority and can alter a client’s perception of your firm in a negative way. Rather than seeing you as exclusive and luxurious, they will see you as easy to manipulate and abuse if they have bad intentions. Even if they have good intentions and only take advantage of your flexibility because they’re excited for their project, using non-standard communication channels at odd times can create major gaps in data and reporting. A request made in a 10pm text or an Instagram DM is riskier than a message sent within working hours. Every little erosion of your authority or missed detail due to unusual communication can eat into your profit, whether through wasted time or client complaints about the quality of the work. Especially when you serve high-net-worth clients, it’s important to stand your ground to maintain your reputation. These clients don’t respect submissiveness―they respect confident leadership.
The Communication Container (Days 1-7)
Right off the bat, it’s important to focus on the how, when, and who of communication. Establish with the client:
- How they should communicate with you (what channels)
- When they can expect a response (what hours you’re available and a time window in which you’ll respond)
- Who the point of contact is for different types of requests
A good client onboarding process can help with this. A simple roadmap that details the way information is exchanged and recorded goes a long way toward establishing these explicit and firm-wide boundaries upfront.
The Scope Guardrails (Days 8-15)
Before the hard work of the project begins and you start logging serious hours, re-verify the scope the client signed on to. This ensures that no surprises await you. If the client decides they actually want to add more to the project, this is still a safe time for them to do so―at least compared to later in the project.
If the client does want to add something later in the project, that’s what a Change Order document is for. Give them access to this document early on so there are no questions and no excuses later on. They’ve seen the document, and they’re aware of why it exists. Don’t forget to stand your ground during this stage if the client does attempt to creep the project scope. If they suggest an addition, be sure to say, “That sounds great. I’ll have the team draft a Change Order for that expanded scope so we can review the fee adjustment.” It’s important to state at the start and in the moment that any change worthy of a change order will include an additional cost. Make this non-negotiable!
Architecting the Decision Process (Days 16-30)
As we discussed in a recent post, clients face a lot of overwhelming choices. Intentionally designing your first thirty days to drip-feed major decisions to clients can help keep them (and you) from burning out. Establish a few boundaries and guardrails around major decisions. For example, give 48 hours to approve or deny proposals and feedback. This gives the client plenty of time to ponder a decision without worrying about stalling the project, and it sets a deadline for you, in case the client is slow.
Also, educate the client on the domino effect that a stalled decision can cause. They should understand that taking too long or dragging out the process only hurts them and their project. It causes problems for your firm, too, especially in terms of cash flow and the burden of holding on to inventory, but you need to appeal to the client and their project, not your business’s concerns.
You can back this up with real consequences. In the contract, include a clause that ensures that if an approval is delayed significantly, the project is bumped to a future time slot, so that your firm can dedicate time to another project on the roster. This will keep your pipeline’s velocity strong and help keep clients behaving how you want them to.
Enforcing the Boundaries
It’s one thing to put your boundaries in writing, but it’s a whole other animal to actually enforce them and stand your ground with tough clients. The first step is removing yourself, as the leader, from the equation. The firewall of boundaries exists in part to shield the owner from the brunt of the busywork. You can’t be putting out daily fires, and you shouldn’t be the point person for every little decision. To do this effectively, you will need to let go of some control and empower your project managers and team of designers to run their projects. They will also need the same level of willpower you require, so that change orders, communication guidelines, and approval deadlines are enforced no matter what.
With this client onboarding system running, your projects will run more smoothly. You’ll also naturally attract the kind of client that respects confidence and straightforwardness.
You don’t want your interior design studio to be reactive and constantly fire-fighting. Instead, you want it to be a highly profitable machine that functions on repeatable and scalable processes. Maintaining strong boundaries doesn’t make you more insular or harder to work with. Rather, it helps you keep your sanity, protect your profits, and attract reliable clients. Spend an hour thinking about your current clients and where you wish you had set stricter boundaries. Then aim to implement those boundaries right from the beginning on your next project. You’ll thank yourself!