The first month with a client sets the pattern for everything after. If the client leaves onboarding with a vision on paper, a scorecard they understand and a weekly meeting on the calendar, the engagement has momentum. If they leave with a login and a promise to “get it set up”, you’ll spend the next quarter chasing them.
Clarion is built for consultants who run several client companies from one account. This guide covers both halves of onboarding: the setup in Clarion, and the first thirty days of work with the client.
Before your first client: switch to a consultant account
A consultant account holds your own company plus client companies underneath it. If you signed up as a single company, the account owner can change this under Settings → Company → Account Type → Switch to Consultant.
Once switched, the company switcher shows client companies nested under yours, and the All Companies view shows every company you’re in with its health at a glance. That view is covered in monitoring your client portfolio.
Create the client company
As an Owner or Admin, go to Settings → All Companies and choose Add Client Company under your company. Give it a name, and optionally an industry and size. See manage client companies.
When the client company is created:
- You’re its Owner. You can set everything up before the client logs in.
- It gets a Leadership team, ready for the client’s leadership scorecard, milestones and sync.
- Its data is separate. Each client company has its own metrics, milestones, challenges, syncs and knowledge. Nothing leaks between clients or up to your company.
Decide who on your team gets in
Not everyone at your firm needs access to every client. In Settings → Team & Permissions, each member of your company has a Client Company Access panel:
- Per client: toggle individual client companies on or off.
- All Clients: for people who work across your whole book, such as partners or an operations lead. They’re added to every existing client company and to every client company created afterwards. Owners of your company join client companies as Admins.
The steps are in advisor access. Review this list whenever someone joins or leaves an engagement.
Invite the client’s team
Switch into the client company from the company switcher, then invite the client’s people from Settings → Team & Permissions → Invite Member. Choose a role and the teams they belong to as you invite them. See invite your team.
On roles: Owners and Admins can manage the company’s settings, teams, people and integrations. Everyone else works within their teams. Give Admin to the client’s leader, and to anyone who’ll genuinely administer the account. Most of the client’s team should not be Admins.
The first thirty days
Setup takes an afternoon. Building the habit takes a month. A plan that works for most clients:
Week 1: Vision. Run a working session to fill in the client’s vision board: purpose, target market, values, and 3-year, 1-year and 90-day goals. Use writing your vision as your structure. Don’t aim for perfect. Aim for written down.
Week 2: Scorecard. Agree five to ten weekly metrics with owners and targets. Enter them in the Leadership team. Where numbers live in another system, set up push URLs or scheduled fetches now, not later.
Week 3: Milestones. Turn the 90-day goals into three to seven milestones, each with one owner and a definition of done.
Week 4: The first sync. Schedule the Leadership team’s weekly sync and facilitate the first one yourself. Facilitate the second one too. By the third, hand the facilitator role to someone on the client’s team and watch. See running the weekly sync.
Onboarding checklist
- Client company created under your account.
- Your team’s access set: per client, or All Clients for those who need it.
- Client’s leader invited as Admin; the rest of the leadership team invited.
- Vision board drafted.
- Scorecard with owners and targets.
- This quarter’s milestones entered.
- Weekly sync scheduled and run at least once.
Common mistakes
Doing the work for them. If you fill in the scorecard every week, the client never learns to run it. You set it up, they keep it current.
Too much at once. A client who gets vision, scorecard, milestones, knowledgebase and three team syncs in week one will use none of them. Build in order.
Everyone as Admin. It’s tempting to give the whole leadership team Admin to avoid permission questions. It also means anyone can change settings, teams and integrations.
Not running the first sync together. The weekly meeting is the habit that holds everything else together. Be in the room for the first ones.
Forgetting your own team’s access. When a colleague rolls off an engagement, turn off their access to that client.