Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi guys. My name is Sheila. Welcome to my E course: How to Streamline your On-boarding Process for Social Media Freelancers. Your hard work is finally paying off, and you're signing more new clients than you can handle. Now what? Do you often find yourself asking what's next after you get a new client? Do you struggle to find the most efficient manner in which you begin your on-boarding process? You're probably doing more admin work then you're paid for. I'm here to show you how to optimize your busy work so you can get back to doing [inaudible] , generating value for your clients. The key to saving time and energy is to have streamlined procedures in place. This means having templates you can easily edit in a GIF and send forward. A good rule of thumb is that you've done the same thing more than three times, you should probably find a way to templatize it. When you work efficiently in some professional materials, your credibility increases. In this E course, I'll go over the templates you should have to streamline your new client procedures in order to send them so you can work smarter and not harder. For this E course, you'll need a Canva account account and Google Docs you can follow along and use the templates provided. Let's get started.
2. Proposal: The first document we'll take a look at templating is your proposal. This document is where you'll spend the most of your time editing. But once you edit it, you can use the information for each plane and carry it forward to the documents using each step of your onboarding procedure. In my proposal, I like to include the following, a cover page with my contact information, the company name, and the date. Summary of the purpose of this proposal. I like to keep my statement broad but tailored to each client. An introduction or short bio of yourself. You can include a photo of yourself if you like, I find it makes things a little bit more professional. There are mixture views on whether adding a photo to a proposal, CV, or resume is beneficial. Next is your overview. A very broad idea of what you can accomplish for them and how you'll do so. This is the trickiest because you do not want to give away any free tips, suggestions, or any strategy as they have not paid you or agreed to hire you. This section should generally cover the direction approach you'd like to take and what channels will be using for what or what content you intend to provide. Next are your objectives. Presumably, I had a conversation or a call with a potential client already, meaning you should know what their objectives are. Do you want to drive traffic to their website, or conversions are mingle? Do they just want to grow their audience, or is engagement a top priority? This is a crucial step. If there's any misunderstanding, it can be disastrous for your relationship, the client, not to mention the busy work of back and forth and emails. Next is your scope of work and deliverable. This section should break down exactly what it is you're providing for them. I encourage you to work meetings and calls into this section to avoid scope creep. A freelancers time is valuable and although short calls, emails and meetings can add up. This section, sets expectations up front and gives you the ability to say no to scope creep that may rear its ugly head. I'm always happy to go above and beyond for my clients outside of this proposal, but they shouldn't expect it. That'll be on the phone with them on the weekends on 9:00 PM on a Thursday. Just not happening. Next is your budget breakdown. This is an area that ever want to purchase differently. Some people like to simply write a number instead of breaking things down, because if you give too many line items, it's easier for people to [inaudible] and dime you. I really like to know what people are getting for their money though, and then tell them what is negotiable and what is not. You should expect some negotiation as it's a natural part of business, but how much a client wants to haggle over the price is a great indicator of what the working relationship is like. Once you have this template mean, it will always require the most customization. I often find this template easier to flush out if I have more context on what the client is looking for, which I get by sending the plank questionnaire beforehand. We'll cover that next.
3. Social Media Questionnaire: A claim questionnaire will make your on-boarding process of reuse if you send it post card and before you send a proposal. This way you can have on paper what they want in terms of services and if they sign with you, it'll make creating your social media strategy of reuse. It not only helps you evaluate potential clients upfront in the event that you can only say yes to some, but it so can help you brainstorm the possibilities for content. The claim questionnaire will ask the following questions: the first section starts out by asking what other social accounts they admire when it comes to social media, whether relevant to the industry or not. This allows you to judge what kind of visuals or initiatives that are drawn to it and captivated by it. But it also makes researching the competition just that much easier. Next, you'll want them to describe their perfect follower. This helps with targeting initiatives on each platform and add span when or if you're doing that for them. After that, you want them to break down their key demographics. This should be foreshadowing to creating your social media strategy. I promise it'll all come back and make sense. You want to ask them what kind of voice they feel their bread has; are they funny, hip, serious or intellectual? This will change drastically on the industry. Are they a medical startup or are the wedding planners? Asking them what their company overview and mission statement is, is very helpful for filling out their social media bios if you're beginning and new for them. The next set of questions helps you identify the scope of work they're looking for. Another reason I like sending this before even the call is that it gives me time to identify any further questions I need to ask or clarify about what they're looking for. Because social media pricing is a sliding scale, it also helps you identify their needs impress them as you see them. In this next section we'll cover KPIs. This helps us judge their knowledge of marketing in general, but it's also a great way to figure out their expectations, and if they are realistic or not. Are you starting to see why we sent this before pretty much anything else? Not only does it make you seem more professional, it helps you identify what kind of workload the client will be and if they be good from the first onset. Whether you've sent this before the proposal, which I highly recommend or after, the information they provide will be critical in the next steps, most people know what they already want. You just have to ask the right questions to find out.
4. Contract/NDA: In my opinion, the whole on-boarding process starts as soon as you send a proposal. If a client is on board, it's time to send over your contract. It's important to set expectations up front. Showing them that they've hired a professional. It's also a great way to catch scope creep before it even happens. If they've agreed to the proposal, which could also act as your contract if you've added all you'd like the client to agree to. They should be happy to sign a contract. If they don't, I might take this as a red flag as the contract protects both parties. You should have a generic contract template that you can edit on a per client basis that states, all of your stipulations for working together. What is in your contract will vary for everyone, but should aim to have something that protects yourself from being exploited as well as follows the laws of the country, province, or state you work in. Your contract should always include the following; the terms of the agreement, the termination terms, a breakdown of all the services you'll be providing, the terms of payment, indemnity terms, and you should always end a paragraph with the stating the following, "This agreement represents the entire agreement between the parties. Any modifications to this agreement must be in writing and acknowledged in writing by both parties". Then if there are changes made, you must sign and date. I would be pretty stern about this because it's important that you're on the same page and you're legally protected. I would also take this time to attach your NDA to the agreement, or e-mail. An NDA is important, especially for social media claims, because they're trusting you with their voice and personal information, such as passwords and company assets. Sending in NDA first shows your commitment to privacy and professionalism. I provided a basic NDA template in the templates folder found at the link in the description. Now we can move on to the welcome package, my favorite.
5. Welcome Package: A welcome package is a nice way to mark to yourself as the halfway mark between your freelancer and an agency, asserting your professionalism and credibility. A welcome package is most important because it sets your expectations upfront by communicating your policies and procedures. You can find my welcome package example in the link in the description. Open it up and follow along. I like to use happy and fun language in the welcome package to get your client excited, but you can do so only after you've got the client, so there's no scaring them away. Like the previous items we spoke about, it all starts with the template. This is where Canva comes in. Canva is a graphic design tool which you're probably already familiar with if you work in social media. It allows you to create visually stunning and engaging graphics with drag and drop technology. I always go to the magazine section of their templates as I like the layouts and I find it to be most like a welcome package layout. I like to make my welcome package very visual, often using photos that are relevant to their industry or from their very own content. Within my welcome package, I like to include three sections: the welcome notice with an introduction of what they can find in the package, your policies and procedures of what your office hours are including vacation and holidays, and one more time, the scope of work and next steps. Let me quickly review the template. Now that they're completely on board, there's no stopping here.
6. Social Media Strategy: You may think the client onboarding has already been complete but I like to draw the line at the point where the client is so comfortable that you can finally focus on the content and area that you add the most value in. Whether you're taking over from another freelancer, an agency or an in-house staff member, there's a reason you're taking over. I always start every client by auditing their social efforts and creating them a social media strategy. Guess what? Queue your social media questionnaire. If you refer back to it, it basically just has everything you need to create a new strategy. Like all things done efficiently, we start with a template. My social media strategy contains the following, an overview statement; what is the company all about? Your goals and objectives. Make sure every goal you set is a SMART goal, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Next are your demographics. Who is your target primary and secondary audiences? The next section will be your voice and tone. Remember, your voice is the steady personality of your writing. It is the character of the brand. By contrast, tone is the expression of the brand character to the audience at hand. Following this section is your hashtag culture. Make sure you do a lot of research here. For a hashtag culture, I would research from high, mid, and low traffic hashtags to be most effective in your campaigns. For hashtag campaigns, this is where you put your suggested branded hashtags. Next is where you'll put your industry competitor research. Remember, most of what we're putting in the strategy has already been given to you and can be found within the social media questionnaire. You'll just be framing it differently and putting it into action. You'll also want to precisely put your deliverables and scope of work once more into this document. I know I say it a lot, but it's important that scope creep doesn't rear its ugly head. What channels you'll be using and what is your action plan on each? Remember, each platform has a different culture, so outline what your plan is for each platform. Last, is your content and your frequency. I like to include a mood board for a few reasons, mostly because I'm a visual person. It gets clients excited about the work you're doing, and it also helps judge whether you're going in the right direction based on their feedback. But it's truly not mandatory. If you'd like to make one you can use something like Pinterest. These are just the items in which I like to include in my strategy document but it will vary from person to person. This document should be able to live on without you, should they choose to go out alone in the future. But hopefully, that doesn't happen because you've already provided that much value. Think of this document as a strategic brand [inaudible]
7. When to Send What: We've just created a template for every document we need to achieve with our client. Remember when you didn't have to use and you made from scratch each time? Yeah. You were already one foot in front of where you were. So how does my new client process go? From the moment I have a new client need, I will always help on a call. I always end the call was something along the lines of the following, I work in a per client basis to get a better sense if we're a good fit for each other, I'd like to send a claim questionnaire. Once I get a better sense of your needs, I continue over proposal. Once you are off the phone, you'll immediately send them a follow-up email thanking them for their time and attach the questionnaire. From here on, this is the order in which you were to use your templates. The social media questionnaire. Next, the proposal following that is the contract and the NDA. Following that is your welcome package. Between this and the social media strategy, I like to create a Google Drive where they can place all of their assets. Then finally, you can begin work on your social media strategy and overall. For your project, I want you to choose a welcome package template on Canva and show me how you can make it personal for each claim. Once again, thanks for listening. I'm Shayla Bond and I'm a social media consultant and illustrator. Hopefully this has helped you have some direction if you're just starting out as a freelancer or hopefully it helps you speed up your onboarding process if you haven't quite found the time to figure out how
Shayla Bond, Digital Content Creator & Illustrator
