Onboarding / Offboarding

Having a process for onboarding and offboarding clients will make your freelance business run significantly more smoothly — and honestly, it'll make you look way more professional from day one.

What is onboarding and offboarding?

Onboarding is the process of getting a new client set up and integrated into your workflow at the start of a project. Offboarding is how you wrap things up when a project or contract ends.

Having both processes in place means fewer dropped details, clearer expectations, and a much smoother experience for you and your clients. If you're brand new to freelancing, there may even be things you didn't realize you could — or should — ask your clients for. That's what this lesson is for.

That said: onboarding and offboarding processes are not absolutely essential when you're just starting out. If you're in "get clients as fast as possible" mode right now, it's okay to skip this and come back later. Just don't skip it forever.

There's a full client questionnaire lesson here with every question worth considering for each stage:

You don't need to take notes on every question here — just focus on understanding the process.

Onboarding

Step 1: Discovery

The goal of the discovery stage is simple — understand what the client needs and whether it's a good fit before any contracts are signed.

Most of this happens on a discovery call. I personally prefer to get on a quick call and gather everything I need from the conversation directly. But if you'd rather have things in writing before you talk, sending a short pre-call questionnaire first is a completely valid approach. Some freelancers find it makes the call itself more efficient. Do what works for your style.

Either way, by the end of discovery you want to know:

→ What they need and what their goals are → How they prefer to communicate and collaborate → A rough sense of timeline and project scope → Who else has input or sign-off on the work → Their budget

Step 2: Get your contract signed and invoicing sorted

Before any work starts, you need a signed contract and a clear picture of how you'll get paid. Here's an email template you can adapt:

Hey [Client],

I'm so excited to get started on this project with you!

Before we begin, I need two things:

1. A signed contract — you can sign mine using the link below, or send yours over for me to review.

2. Billing info — I typically send invoices via email, payable by ACH or credit card. If you have a payment portal you'd prefer I use, just let me know.

I'll need both by [date] to hit our first deliverable date of [date].

Looking forward to working together!

[Your Name]

Step 3: Kick-off

Once the contract is signed, it's time to get the project-specific details you need to actually do the work.

If you're leading the project — working directly with a small business, startup, or founder — a kick-off questionnaire is worth it. This is where you go deeper and gather:

→ Client assets: style guides, brand voice documents, existing content or copy → Project specifics and deliverable details → The client's goals for the project → Details about their business, audience, and brand voice

For simpler ongoing work, a kick-off call or a few back-and-forth emails might be enough. For more complex projects — brand voice guides, full content strategies, email sequences — I'll usually do both a kick-off call and a questionnaire. Sometimes I just fill it out myself while we're talking.

If you've been brought onto a larger team — an agency, a company with an in-house marketing team, or a client like a Lenovo or a Grammarly where there's already infrastructure in place — you probably don't need to run your own kick-off questionnaire. They'll have their own onboarding process and brief templates. In that case, focus on getting what you need to do great work: the brand guidelines, any existing content, a clear brief, and direct access to whoever you'll be collaborating with.

Step 4: Set up your client dashboard

After kick-off, I build an internal dashboard for the client to keep everything organized in one place.

If you're leading the project for a smaller client, I actually recommend sharing the dashboard with them — I usually send it along with the first deliverable. It helps the client see exactly where everything lives and reduces the back-and-forth of "where did we land on X?" You can share edit or view access depending on how collaborative you want the relationship to be.

If you're embedded in a larger team, keep the dashboard internal. They have their own systems — you're just staying organized on your end.

You can build your dashboard in whatever project management tool works for you. I use Notion. You can grab my free Freelancer Dashboard template here if you want a starting point.

Here's what I keep on each client dashboard:

→ Point of contact info → Login credentials (if applicable) → Their style guide and brand voice notes → Cheat sheets for recurring tasks I do for that client → Any templates I've built for them → Links to shared Google Drive folders → Tasks and due dates → Notes from client calls → Their questionnaire answers, organized and easy to reference

Some CRMs like Dubsado and HoneyBook have built-in client dashboard tools too, which can be a great option if you want everything in one platform.

Offboarding

Offboarding is simpler than onboarding, but it matters. A clean ending to a project leaves a good impression — and sets you up for referrals and repeat work.

When a contract ends or you've delivered the final work, here's how I wrap things up:

Deliver the final work and confirm completion

Send over the last deliverable with a short note confirming the project is complete. Make it clear what was delivered and give the client any final context they need to use or publish it.

Ask for a review or testimonial

If you enjoyed working with the client and would work with them again, send a short follow-up with two or three questions:

→ What was it like working together? (with permission, you can use this as a testimonial) → What made you decide to hire a freelancer for this? → Is there anything I could have done better?

Make it as easy as possible for them to say yes. Include a draft they can edit or copy-paste directly — most clients want to leave a review but get stuck on what to write. Give them a starting point and they're much more likely to follow through.

For where to send them, Google Reviews and LinkedIn Recommendations are both great options. Include a direct link to whichever platform makes the most sense for your business so they're not hunting for it. An email reply works too if you just need a written testimonial you can use on your site or portfolio.

If you don't hear back within a month, follow up. One friendly nudge is completely appropriate — people get busy and genuinely forget. Keep it short and warm:

Hey [Client], just circling back on this! No pressure at all — if you have a few minutes to share your experience working together, it would mean a lot. I've included the link again below. Either way, it was a pleasure working with you and I hope we get to do it again sometime!

If it wasn't a great fit, you can still ask for feedback — just leave out the testimonial request and the "here's how to hire me again" part.

What if the client wants to onboard you?

Some clients — especially larger companies, agencies, or startups — will have their own onboarding process for freelancers. That's fine. Just make sure you still run through your own checklist before the work starts so you have everything you need from your end. Their process and your process can coexist.