Onboarding checklist for new customers

The four kinds of line that belong

A thing you need from the customer. A thing you set up without them. A thing that must be confirmed in writing. A thing that ends the onboarding. Each is a discrete action with a person and a state, which is what makes it tickable. If a line does not fit one of those four, it is almost always delivery work that has drifted forward into onboarding.

The three that do not

Aspirations, which cannot be ticked and quietly train people to ignore unticked lines. Duplicates of your engagement terms, which belong in the agreement and not on an operational list. And anything conditional on a decision nobody has made, because a line that cannot be completed today blocks the ones behind it and makes the list feel broken.

Keeping it finishable

Count the rows. Steps plus document requests is the honest length, and the free worksheet here returns it from your own numbers along with the minutes and working days a month the list costs your firm. Most lists that people abandon turn out to be over thirty rows, and most of the excess turns out to be delivery.

Separating the customer's half

Show the customer only the lines that are theirs. Their share of a twenty five row list is usually six or seven items, and presenting it that way is the difference between a reasonable request and a wall of homework in the first week of a relationship you just spent months winning.