Client onboarding
Welcome email, contract and statement of work, access credentials, kickoff scheduling, project setup, brief collection. Done slightly differently every time.
Agency founders
More capacity,
less admin.
I help founder-led agencies organise onboarding, report preparation, billing and follow-up. The aim is a repeatable process with clear owners and useful drafts, while your team keeps client judgement and sends the messages.
At a glance
- Who it fits
- Founder-led marketing, PR, design, digital and content agencies
- What it removes
- Onboarding, reporting, billing, new business admin and daily checks
- Where it starts
- A free conversation, then a £350 Process Review or a broader Review from £650
- Your time
- Under two hours
The problem
The admin does not just take time.
It takes the right time.
Running a small agency means wearing several hats at once: client work, new business, managing people, and the admin underneath all of it. For most founders the admin does not simply take hours. It takes the hours that should have gone to clients or to growth.
The pattern repeats across marketing, PR, design, digital and content agencies, because the shape of the business is the same. Every client needs onboarding. Every retainer needs a report. Every month needs invoices.
What makes an agency different from a solo consultant is the multiplication. The same admin runs across every client, every team member and every recurring process at the same time.
Founders who reclaim the most time are not the ones who automate every task. They are the ones who stop being the manual alert system for their own business.
Where the time goes
Where agency founders
lose the most capacity
Five areas, and the fifth is the one founders can overlook.
Common candidates in an agency
- Client onboarding triggered by a signed contract
- Monthly report drafts generated from project data
- Invoice creation and payment chasing sequences
- Proposal and scope templates with client fields filled in
- Project status drafts prepared on schedule for your team to check and send
- New client brief collection and filing
- Post project testimonial and feedback requests
- Capacity alerts when client volumes change
- Exception only alerts replacing daily manual checks
- A weekly management digest instead of manual pulls
The arithmetic
Why it compounds in an agency
A founder managing eight retainer clients, each needing a monthly report and regular billing, has a different problem from a solo consultant with three clients. It is the same tasks multiplied, running in parallel.
The time is scattered across the week: a report here, a proposal there, an invoice in the evening. Measure the recurring tasks before assuming how much capacity a change could release.
The fix has value for the same reason. The cost of building an onboarding process once is spread across every client who is onboarded afterwards. A reporting template built once produces every future report.
The founder-level checks deserve their own mention. The answer is not to automate the judgement call. It is to define the threshold once, how late is late and how stale is stale, and let an alert fire only when it is crossed. You stop checking everything and start being told what actually needs you.
≈12 → <1hours of admin in a busy month, at a payroll firm serving around 200 client companies
Premium Paye
At Premium Paye in France, invoice preparation, direct debits and online onboarding were connected. The founder reports around twelve hours of admin in a busy month with new clients before the change, and under one hour now across those processes.
Read the case studyEvery daythe founder reads the activity instead of assembling it
Recruitment agency, London
Activity lived across spreadsheets, email and notes. It was all recorded and none of it could be used to decide anything. Reporting built backwards from the founder’s own questions changed that.
Read the case studyIndustry context
Marketing, creative & PR agencies
Keeping delivery within the fee.
The IPA’s 2026 pricing guidance considers changing scope. The Alliance of Independent Agencies examines profit pressures. PRCA research also documents over-servicing.
What we can work onA clear brief, a record of extra requests and a view of effort against the agreed budget, ready for a client conversation.
Help for agency foundersIndustry context, not an endorsement of 10PM. The practical responses are examples to scope; they are not measured client outcomes.
How it works
From your first question
to a working solution.
We agree the right depth of discovery first. Each paid stage has its own deliverables and fixed fee; you decide whether to continue after it.
First, a free 15-minute conversation to understand the challenge and agree the appropriate next step.
Understand your business
We explore the process, what you want to achieve and how your team prefers to work. I challenge the proposed solution if the underlying problem is different.
You receiveA clear process map, written recommendations and an agreed priority.
Check the tools and feasibility
During separately scoped Process Design, I check the connections, permissions, costs and exceptions that could affect the solution.
You receiveA documented workflow, feasibility findings and the requirements for a reliable build.
Agree the scope and price
Before implementation, we agree what will be built, the timeline, responsibilities and how we will check that it works.
You receiveA written proposal with a fixed build price, acceptance checks and any ongoing costs.
Build and test
I build the agreed solution and test normal cases, exceptions and approvals. Your team reviews it against the checks we agreed.
You receiveA working solution, a demonstration and the agreed checks completed before handover.
Document, train and hand over
I show your team how to use the solution, what to monitor and how to handle exceptions. We clarify ownership and support.
You receivePractical instructions, a walkthrough and clear support terms so your team can run it.
One recurring processFocused Process Review · £350Several connected prioritiesBusiness Process Review · from £650
Discovery, Process Design and implementation each have an agreed scope and fee. You choose the appropriate discovery service; buying both is not required. Testing, documentation and team handover are included in the agreed implementation scope.
Before we talk
What agency founders ask
before starting.
These come up on almost every first call.
Where should we start?
Almost always with the highest volume, most consistent process. For most agencies that is either onboarding or monthly reporting, whichever is causing the most friction right now.
The Review decides it with numbers rather than instinct: which processes repeat most, how long they actually take, and what they cost across the team in a year.
Do we have to change tools?
I start with the tools you already use. Some workflows can use built-in features; others need a connector or an API-based service. We check access, usage limits, data handling and recurring costs before choosing the setup. You own the accounts, and the proposal identifies the subscriptions and support the agreed workflow needs.
Will this take work away from my team?
It takes the work nobody wants off them. The admin that gets removed is the work that repeats identically for every client, which often sits alongside the work people were hired to do.
How do we know the problem is big enough to be worth fixing?
The free fifteen-minute review answers that without any commitment. Tell me how your week works and I will tell you whether there is a leak worth fixing.
Ideas to explore
Two handovers worth making clearer.
An enquiry with a next action.
Capture the message once, assign the owner and prepare the follow-up so the relationship does not depend on memory.
Explore the enquiry workflow ↗A first week with clear owners.
Agree the information, access, brief and kickoff steps. Give each one an owner and a due date.
Use the onboarding checklist ↗Keep reading
Related
Your business
Find the recurring work
worth removing.
Tell me what your agency’s admin actually looks like and I will tell you where the capacity is leaking and what fixing it is worth.
15 minutes · No charge
Prefer to write? anne@10pm.works