Streamline New Client Onboarding

A step-by-step guide to help you plan out your new client onboarding process so that you can easily see where every client is.

Ron Gorodetsky avatar
Written by Ron Gorodetsky
Updated over a week ago

Using this approach to workflow planning allows you to:

  • View your onboarding process as a dashboard of workflows

  • Visualize exactly where every client is in your onboarding process

  • Assign tasks and delegate work more effectively to different members of your team

  • Anticipate bottlenecks (and droughts!)

You can get started by selecting the Clear All button at the top left of your Hub:

Now you can select the Create Workflow button a the top right of your Hub to create your first workflow:

This will be a holding pattern for your leads and referrals — effectively where your relationship with every prospective client will begin:

We recommend calling this workflow New Client 1: Prospects and including a couple of pre-configured tasks:

  • Initial email/call complete

  • Follow up (if required)

  • Next Meeting Date saved to Hubly

  • Calendar Event Sent Out

  • Follow-Up Email Sent Out

Documenting these tasks will help you track when you first reached out and easily remember where you left off. This is critical to knowing which relationships need to be nurtured and being able to iterate upon your top-of-funnel processes long term:

Now we will select Done to save your changes and use the Create Workflow button to create the next stage in this process:

This will be your first milestone in a new client relationship — typically your New Client 2: Initial Meeting/Call workflow:

For meeting workflows, we recommend including a couple of tasks to document when a meeting occurs and help you track where you left off with a prospective client:

  • Initial Meeting/Call Complete

  • Meeting Notes saved to Hubly

  • Next Meeting Date saved to Hubly

  • Calendar Event Sent

  • Follow-Up Email Sent

This is important because often times when your day picks up, it can become difficult to remember who needs a follow-up, where you saved your meeting notes, and which calendar events still need to go out.

Having a single place to track progress gives you a home base for client work. You can use the quick-action Comment button in-line with a Task to quickly save your meeting notes as a Comment:

Use the Meeting Date field at the top right of your client card to quickly jot down the date and time of your next call:

Creating these kinds of workflows will help you ensure that you remember exactly where you left off, while not overburdening yourself with too many steps to keep track of.

Did you know: When connected to your CRM, Hubly automatically saves Comments that you create in Hubly as Notes in your CRM (and vice versa)?

Now we will select Done to save your changes and use the Create Workflow button to create the next stage in this process:

This will be your second milestone in a new client relationship — typically your New Client 3: Initial Consultation workflow:

You may have some preparation tasks that you want to include — we recommend starting with those pre-configured tasks and adding the following:

  • Initial Consultation Complete

  • Meeting Notes saved to Hubly

  • Next Meeting Date saved to Hubly

  • Calendar Event Sent

  • Follow-Up Email Sent

Remember to customize these tasks. For example, if most calls are not booked within the client meeting then the order might change to after the follow-up email is sent. If additional pre/post work is required, that those steps may need to also be included.

We typically recommend customizing the rest of your onboarding process to match the way that you currently work with clients. Here are some recommended workflows to use as a starting point:

  • New Client 4: Paperwork/Signing

  • New Client 5: Discovery Meeting Prep

  • New Client 6: Discovery Meeting

  • New Client 7: Financial Plan Creation (or Topic Meeting Prep)

  • New Client 8: Financial Plan Review Meeting (or Topic Meeting)

  • New Client 9: Account Opening

  • New Client 10: Billing

Remember to save your workflows by selecting the Done button as you go. You can also re-order your workflows by dragging and dropping them within your Hub.

Grouping Workflows

Use the Create Process button in the Workflows menu to create a new process:

Now you can add a name, description, and select the New Client workflows you would like to be grouped together:

Now instead of displaying workflows individually, you can select the process to hide/show all of your onboarding workflows as a group:

Configuring Next Workflows

Select Edit Workflow from a workflow’s menu to configure the Next Workflow setting:

Next Workflows make it easier to see which step in the onboarding process a client should be added to next:

Next Workflows display in Workflows summary section, within the right column of client card when a client has been added to a workflow:

When a workflow is completed for a client, you will have the option to simply move the client to the Next Workflow(s) using the Move to Next Workflows ​button that appears:

In some cases, clients may need to flow to multiple workflows. You can configure this by adding multiple workflows under a workflow’s setting:

You can also customize this for individual clients after they’re added to a workflow by simply adding or removing a Next Workflow in the client card:

You can remove, or start a Next Workflow for a client at any time from a Next Workflow’s Menu:

A Next Workflow can also be scheduled to a start date, in which case it will be skipped when the client completes the current workflow until the start date:

Making Workflows Smarter With Rules & Integrations

The new client process often involves many manual, error-prone data rekeying steps. Hubly can help you eliminate these steps by configuring Workflow Rules and connecting your account to Zapier.

Consider creating Add/Remove Stream Rules on the following workflows:

  • Add “Leads” stream when a client is added to New Client 1

  • Remove “Leads” stream if a client is archived from New Client 1 (use the Archive option to keep a record of that client being in that workflow but not successfully completing it)

  • Add “Lost Leads” stream when a client is arrchived from New Client 1

  • Add “New Client” stream when a client completes New Client 4

  • Remove “Leads” stream when a client completes New Client 4

  • Add “AUM” stream when a client completes New Client 8

  • Add “Active Client” stream when a client completes New Client 9

  • Remove “New Client” stream when a client completes New Client 9

To configure a rule, select Edit Workflow from a workflow’s menu:

Now, select Add Rule and find the rule type that you would like to configure:

From here you can configure the desired action and select Add Rule to save:

Here is a helpful guide to help you set up Hubly's integration with Zapier.

You can use Zapier to connect your website's interest form to create and add a new prospective client into the New Client 1 workflow in Hubly.

You can also configure Zaps to find and add prospective clients to the appropriate new client meeting workflows when an associated meeting type is booked via your online scheduling link.

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