When I first dove into starting my business, I was mostly excited—but also secretly panicking about one big thing: how on earth was I going to take care of my clients the right way? I had spent hours dreaming up the perfect client experience—how I wanted them to feel supported, celebrated, and downright delighted every step of the way. I mapped out timelines, imagined smooth handoffs, and pictured those “wow” moments.

Then reality tapped me on the shoulder: “Cool plan, but how do you actually make this happen without turning yourself into a frazzled mess?” 😅 Cue the mini freak-out and the mental juggling act of, “Wait, how do people manage this and keep their sanity?!”

Having a project management background meant I loved a good timeline and checklist, but I needed more than enthusiasm—I needed a solid game plan. So, I took a deep breath, rolled up my sleeves, and got busy crafting systems that would keep things running smoothly… without sacrificing my sanity (or my spark).

Here’s what I learned along the way — my favorite tips and tricks to create client processes that protect your time and make your clients feel like total VIPs.

BTW – there may be affiliate links where I earn a commission at no additional cost to you if you make a purchase, but I only ever recommend things I’ve used and love!

Do A Time Audit

First, look at your time. When you’re stretched thin on time, time management is important. In fact, I really believe time is one of our most valuable resources.

You can always find ways to make more money– take on extra hours or sell stuff you don’t use anymore. But when you spend time, you don’t get it back. You can’t make more of it. Laura Vanderkam said “Time is your most valuable resource, treat it as such.” 

So the first place to start is to do a time audit. Be honest with yourself. Track where your time is going in fifteen minute increments. Do this for at least a week. Then go back and trim the fat. Cut out everything that is just a distraction from your goals. Cut out Netflix and social media scrolling. Work hard now so you can rest later. Brian Moran said “time is a finite resource, use it wisely.”

Use a Workload Tracker to Stay Within Your Weekly Project Hour Limit

Do you sit down to goal plan for the year?

I love sitting down to business plan for the next year in August – this gives me time to make adjustments, a plan, and to take action for the last quarter of the year so I can hit the ground running for the beginning of the year. 

When you goal plan for the year, review your workload for weekly project hours.

A workload tracker will look at service pricing, number of clients needed for the year to hit revenue goals, and project hours for each client. This will tell you how many hours you’re estimating to work each week for the amount of clients you need. That way you know what your limits are so that you can prevent overwhelm while also hitting your revenue goals.

Pro tip: Take on one client at a time in the beginning so you can work out any kinks in your systems and make sure you’re hitting project timelines on time or ahead of time.

Being unable to complete a project in the timeline you estimated is a sure way to become super stressed out and overwhelmed. Once you’re able to make sure you hit project timelines, you can take on more clients confidently.

Track Client Workflow

If you haven’t set up a client workflow checklist yet, now is the time. As a smart business rule, anytime you’re repeating a process in your business, make a system or template for it.

In this case, that’s where a workflow comes in. A workflow is a set of steps needed to accomplish the objective. 

There are a number of benefits to using a workflow, one of them being improved productivity and giving you back hours of time. And time is one of our most valuable resources, so we love getting our time back. 🙌

The objective for your client workflow is the completed deliverable in your client’s hands. To create your workflow, write down each action step you take in order to get a client from inquiry to delivery. 

In the project management world, this workflow is actually called a “project timeline” and each action step is called a “task”. Tasks are the actionable building blocks a project.

As Jon Acuff said in one of my fav books Quitter, “Success is a series of small wins over time.” Think of tasks as your “small wins”. 😉 

For example, as a portrait photographer, that might start to look like:

• Respond to inquiry
• Follow up 1 to inquiry (if needed)
• Follow up 2 to inquiry (if needed)
• Send invoice and service agreement
• Follow up to invoice (if needed)
• Send welcome email/confirmation of payment received
• Send check-in email before session (for questions on outfits, session prep, etc)
• Send session prep reminder email 
• And so on (you get the point)

Example in Trello:

Notice each one starts with an action verb. These are steps you need to take. 

Put those steps into a checklist you can track for each new client. One of my favorite project management tools for this is Trello. 

Pro Tip: Add when each step occurs to keep yourself on track. For example, “Respond to inquiry (within 4 hours)” or “Send session prep reminder email (2 days before session)”

Track Clients in a Pipeline (Using a Project Management System or Client Relationship Management tool)

While your client workflow tracks where the client is in their project timeline, the pipeline tracks where the client is in the client journey with you. This is simple and you can keep it as simple or detailed as you need. Think of this as which stage of the client journey your client is in with you. A simple example is:

• Inquiry
• Send invoice + contract
• Editing/In Progress
• Delivery + Offboard
• Archive (where completed projects move to clean up your board)

See how there is a clear beginning, middle, and end to the client journey for your projects?

Example in Trello:

Make A Task Priority List At The Beginning of The Week

At the beginning of each week, take a look at your pipeline and make a list of the tasks for each project that must be completed by the end of the week to keep your projects on track. Make deadlines for them. 

I like to do this to get an overall idea of what my workload actually looks like for the week.

Some tasks are more work-intensive than others so with this list, you can look at everything else going on in your calendar and make a game plan for getting everything done.

Make sure you give yourself time buffers for unexpected things to come up so that you still get everything done this week. 

In general, I like to track tasks in a hybrid digital/paper format. This one I prefer to track on paper.

I have a cheap notebook from Amazon that I use to track my weekly tasks with bullet points. Seeing things crossed off my list makes me feel more accomplished and gives me more momentum.

Use Templates to Save Time

I mentioned this earlier and it’s definitely worth repeating: a smart business rule is to create a template for processes you find yourself repeating. 

For example, the checklist of tasks you made earlier for your client’s project?

Turn it into a template that can be duplicated and renamed for each similar project, instead of rewriting the list every time you have a new project. 

Find yourself writing a similar response to every inquiry you get?

Make an email template that has most of the email written. You can still personalize the email before it’s sent out, but 90% of it is already written for you. 

A few other examples of email responses to make templates for:

• Autoresponse to inquiries (no one likes to feel like they sent an inquiry to a contact form that wasn’t working right—confirm they’ve been received and they’re in good hands)
• Asking for more information (if their inquiry didn’t give enough information to be able to provide a proposal with the cost of services)
• Service Proposal (outlining the cost of the service + what’s included) for each service
• Unavailability during the requested time frame BUT how they can still work with you
• Sending invoices/contracts 
• Following up on inquiries/unpaid invoices or unsigned contracts
• Accepting/declining out of scope work 
• Welcome email
• Out of office
• Project delivery
• Request for Testimonial

I also like to make checklist templates for any other repeated processes that might not be client work. 

Do you have a process for how you create and publish posts to social media? 

Do you have a list of items/tasks you need to track before every photo session (pack camera bodies, format memory cards, clean lenses, pack extra water bottles/snacks, etc)?

Do you have a standard set of folders you make for every single client project? 

You get the idea. Every time you find yourself repeating a process in your business, make a template for it. It might only take you 30 to 90 seconds to create that folder set, but imagine you find over 50 processes that you could create in 3 seconds instead of 90 seconds? The time savings add up. 

One thing to consider purchasing templates for are contracts. These are legally binding documents that have to be written a certain way in order to actually protect you. That is NOT something you want to DIY yourself or use ChatGPT for. Even ChatGPT will tell you it’s not a good idea. Try it out 🤣 

The best route for contracts is having an attorney from your state review and draft them but this can be costly for a new business owner (over $1000/contract). A more affordable alternative is an attorney reviewed and drafted template.

I have personally used and loved contacts from The Contract Shop. These contracts are attorney drafted and reviewed by multiple attorneys and within the templates there are guidelines to what you can modify for your needs and what you shouldn’t touch. 

Automate Repetitive Steps When Possible (Without It Taking Away From the Client Experience)

This piggybacks off of the previous points. You’re already saving so much time by creating templates, now take this to the next level by automating what you can.

The caveat?

Don’t automate things that will take away from the client experience. 

For example, your autoresponse to inquiries email will tell inquiries that you’ve received their email, what time frame they can expect to hear back from you, and where they can learn more about you in the meantime.

That’s pretty standard and no need to personalize at this step. This can be automated to send seconds after your lead sends an inquiry. 

But the response after that outlines your services and the cost? You want to personalize that one before sending it so that you build rapport and connection with your potential client instead of making them feel like another number.

Another example?

Let’s say you created that workflow checklist for a family portrait session in a card on Trello.

You could manually duplicate the card and rename it yourself every time you get an inquiry through Honeybook, orrr you can set up a zap with Zapier to automatically duplicate the card and rename it for you. 

Pretty sweet right?

Work Hard Now, Rest Later

Michael Hyatt said, “you have the power to write your own future.” I know all of this is a lot, and it’s hard work.

But every choice you make today creates the future you dream of.

Jon Acuff said “Embrace the hustle; it’s what turns dreams into reality.”

Work hard now so you can rest later. I’ve been there, and I know it’s hard. You can do hard things, I believe in you!

Now that you’ve read through this, pin this and come back to it so you can take action! 

Here’s your game plan:

• Do a time audit
• Set up your weekly project hours limit
• Create workflows
• Set up your client journey pipeline
• Dedicate a notebook to your weekly task priority lists 
• Create templates
• Automate repetitive steps that don’t take away from the client experience

Talk soon!

xoxo,

Cindi