🕰️ Est. Time: 10 minutes
🎯 Goal: Capture new business projects within your agency workflow
🔑 Requirements: Access to create and edit jobs
This guide helps you think through your business operations step by step and chances are, you already have many of these answers! Treat it as a checklist, and if anything feels unclear, we’re here to help.
Why create a workflow for new business?
Managing new business initiatives is essential to keeping your operations efficient and transparent. Whether it's tracking efforts for lead qualification, proposal creation, client onboarding, or initial project scoping, having clear processes in place will help ensure everything runs smoothly.
How to use this guide
How to use this guide
You’ll likely already have many answers to this guide, but using it as a checklist will ensure you've covered all key scenarios for a more effective approach.
What do the 🔑 and ➕ mean
What do the 🔑 and ➕ mean
The questions below are coded based on their impact on your success:
🔑 Essential for success
➕ Worth considering but not crucial
Documenting your workflow
Documenting your workflow
Once you're aligned, don’t forget to document your processes to ensure clarity and consistency across your team.
Creating opportunities
🔑 When does a new opportunity get added?
Consider if this happens at the initial inquiry stage so you can track all incoming requests, or only after receiving a more detailed brief. Will you use jobs, quotes, or both to track the opportunity?
Relevant resources
Relevant resources
Creating Jobs (1 min read)
How do I quote? (1 min read)
Companies and contacts (2 min read)
➕ Do you want to pause jobs until they are confirmed?
Consider how using job statuses to pause unconfirmed work might impact your resource planning and team's overall visibility.
➕ Would a kanban view help visualise your pipeline?
These boards can be helpful in organising, viewing and tracking incoming opportunities.
Relevant resources
Relevant resources
Understanding Priorities (kanban) (1 min read)
Tracking leads
🔑 Which data points need to be recorded?
Think about crucial details like budget, due date, anticipated effort, lead source, and the specific service type required. Tracking details like won vs lost opportunities, and diving into reasons for losing an opportunity could improve future success rates.
Relevant resources
Relevant resources
Job labels (1 min read)
🔑 How does pitching fit into your overall business?
Consider how you estimate pitch time, allocate resource and manage profit margins.
Relevant resources
Relevant resources
Non-billable time (1 min read)
Role planning (3 min read)
Team capacity (5 min read)
Scope changes
🔑 Should new business stay under the same job once it’s won?
Using the same job allows you to track your true profit on the job, supporting future pitches and quotes.
Relevant resources
Relevant resources
How items work (3 min read)
➕ Do you need to establish internal milestones within new projects?
How do approval stages, check-ins, and internal deadlines support your workflow?
Relevant resources
Relevant resources
Managing milestones (2 min read)
🔑 How will you manage changes to project scope?
Consider whether changes are due to internal or external challenges, and whether costs should be passed back to your client or absorbed. Use the timeline to keep an eye on the time and effort impact of these changes.
Relevant resources
Relevant resources
Managing scope creep (2 min read)
Timelines (2 min read)
Key insights
What are the key trends you need to monitor for new business projects? Guidance: Consider if different teams or roles need their own customised reporting views. Do you need to track overdue invoices specifically for new clients, or identify patterns across different clients to understand payment behaviours?
Below are some of the mostly commonly used views.
Relevant resources
Relevant resources
Creating and saving custom list views (8 min read)
Kanban boards to help visualise flows (5 min read)