Write the job down before you start

Nobody thinks they’re skipping onboarding. They think they’re being easy to work with. The call goes well. Someone says they’ll throw references in a Drive. You say great. Tuesday you open Figma with a Pinterest board, a logo they already hate and didn’t mention, and a date that only existed in a calendar invite titled Kickoff.

Three weeks later they ask for packaging. You remember saying the job was a site. They remember “we can figure it out.” You’re both telling the truth. The conversation lived in the air.

Onboarding, in one sentence

Before you open the file, there is a page they can open that says: what you’re making, how many revision rounds, the Thursday it is due, and the number. They have said yes on that page. That is the whole trick. I don’t mean a welcome PDF with office hours and a Slack channel. I mean the job, written down.

Intake first — the questions, in writing, before you quote. (There’s a separate note on what to ask.) Then a scope they can actually read. “Primary logo + two lockups,” not “brand identity.” Two rounds, not “reasonable revisions.” A Thursday, not “end of month-ish.”

The week I keep getting wrong

Last March I did three jobs in a row the stupid way. One brief lived in Instagram DMs — a shoe brand, “something clean,” twenty-three messages, no file. One I started because the call felt good and the intake was “coming Monday.” One I showed Figma before they’d seen the scope, so the first round was really a fight about whether the job was a site or a site plus packaging. All three shipped. I still have the sheet from the packaging one. Site was $5,200, priced at about thirty-five hours. Packaging arrived in week three. I did it because I had already said yes by not saying no. Fourteen hours on dielines I am not good at. $5,200 divided by 49 is $106. The call had been about a site.

The order that has saved me, when I actually follow it. The page is four lines. If it doesn’t fit on four lines, I don’t understand the job yet.

Deliverable: homepage + four inner templates. Rounds: two. Due: Thursday, April 9. Fee: $5,200, 50% to start.

1. Send the intake. Do not start while it’s empty. I know they texted. The text is not the brief.
2. Write the scope from what they typed, not from what I decided they meant on the call.
3. Share that page. Wait until they say yes on it. A “looks good” in Slack is not yes on the page.
4. Then open Figma. Not during the waiting. Then.

The line that would have saved the packaging

The four lines are the job. The fifth is the one I skipped for years: what is not in it. On the packaging job it would have read “Not included: packaging, print production, copy.” Seven words. It feels defensive to type. It is the only line that answers a week-three ask before it arrives, because the client reads it while they still think the job is small.

I also write down what I need from them, with a date, because half of every late project is the client’s homework. “From you: logo files, brand fonts, homepage copy, by Monday, April 6.” If the copy shows up on the 14th, the Thursday moves, and nobody has to argue about why. The page already said so.

• Deliverable, in a format a developer would recognize.
• Rounds, as a number.
• Due date, as a weekday and a date.
• Fee, and how it splits: 50% to start, the rest on handoff.
• Not included, in plain words.
• What I need from them, and by when.
• One approver, by name.

Seven lines. Still one page. If it runs to two, I am writing a proposal, and that is a different document for an earlier stage.

When they say “we trust you, just start”

This is the hard one, because it is meant kindly. They are busy. The page feels like paperwork to them, and a little like distrust. I used to hear it as permission. It is really a request to skip the only part of the job that protects both of us.

Thanks — I’ll start the day you say yes on the page. It’s seven lines and takes two minutes. It’s mostly so neither of us has to remember the call.

Said that way, it is hard to refuse. When someone takes a week to click yes on seven lines, that tells me something useful about how the invoice will go, and I would rather know it before the work than after.

If they want to start Monday and the page isn’t signed, Monday moves. That feels rude the first time. It is less rude than a packaging argument in week three. That page is just a written version of the call, sent back to them, before you spend the hours.

Calls change jobs. Write it down again.

The page is not something you agree once and bury. Every call that changes the job gets a short recap the same day: what changed, what it costs, whether the date moves. If the change is real work, it becomes a change order, and they say yes on that page too. If the recap says “no change,” I still send it. Two lines — “we talked about the footer; it stays as scoped” — end more week-three arguments than anything I can say on a call.