How to Work with Clients in ClickUp without Overwhelm

Hello everybody. I am back. If you don't know me, my name is Layla. I run ProcessDriven. I'm also one of the people behind this group that you're seeing here today. I am continuing the ritual of workflow Wednesdays or just Wednesday lives, talking about how you can map your workflows, get them into technology, start building that business instruction manual. And I'm happy to say I'm here broadcasting into the process driven collective because we have just changed the name of this group thanks to all of your feedback. So today in terms of what we're going to be talking about, I'm not really sure yet. I was talking with Jen on the team before I jumped on here and I was like, oh shoot, I have to prep. Like what do I want to discuss? And I was kind of tied between these two topics. These were two kind of posts that have stuck out to me in the last few days in the group. One of them is over here. This is James's post about the best way to onboard clients without overwhelming them. Specifically referring to ClickUp because as we know, ClickUp is hard to use, hard to get people to use, especially guests who aren't in it for the long haul. The other post, which this was actually echoed by a few people Kimberly put in here. Tim had a similar question. There was a few ones about hierarchy in ClickUp and this is basically about what level do I have covered. You can just use the comments here and that'll help me know which way to go with the presentation to them. But. But I'm looking for your vote in the comments whether you'd be interested in having the green topic covered or the blue topic covered. Both have had conversations in the Facebook group, so if you haven't already just chimed in directly to them, please do. I'm sure James and Kimberly would appreciate your weigh in, but I'm going to share my perspective of just how I would approach these problems if you let me know which one you would rather see covered. So while we wait on for that, hopefully the lawnmower sounds outside aren't too bad. Let's just, let's dive into some of the basics here. Which should I cover? This is the open question here. Oop, looks like I'm biased. Let's use, let's use black patient email, which can sometimes be confusing for people. They get that weird invitation that we can't customize. It's an email. Looks something like, looks nothing like that, but you know what I mean. And they get that invitation and they need to log in so some things you can have to have them to help them in the doing phase is to actually sit with them as they accept that invitation and join your ClickUp account. And I could have had a screenshot in here. I didn't prepare enough in advance, but showing them how they click into this email is something you could do in the show stage. But that is also what they need to do in the do stage. What else I do in the do stage is when I'm in this phase, when we're on the call together, I tell them that their first task is to book our next call. And I talked last time about the value of booking a call when you're going into a period of back. And forth. For me, after my first session, there is a period of back and forth that could happen. So I want to book that next call during the first call. But rather than have that happen verbally, I want to train them to actually start using ClickUp. So what I have in there space when they first log in to ClickUp. Again, just giving this story, this is not necessarily the right way. This is just a way that I found to be very helpful. You have it mapped out and there are a lot of tools that you use that you kind of combine together, you cobble together to build out the systems for your business. And only some of those are going to be client facing. But the ones that are, you really need to make sure those clients know how to access those tools to know where they need to go. And as a general rule of thumb, you want to have your clients go in as few places as possible to, to get what they need to have. If you truly want to have your clients trained, if you will, to do the thing you want them to do, to access the information you need them to access on their own, communicate with you the right way, the fewer things you are pushing them towards, the better. So in this case, in this example that we're using today, James was trying to get clients into ClickUp and getting, and this is something I do in my own business. So we're going to multiple angles here. And Tim had a really great point and that's why I included the whole clip in this post. Tim and I just want to shout you out because this was, I think, brilliant. He had a bunch of insights as to how he onboards clients into ClickUp and I'm going to include some of those in the workflow we're about to do. So let's just start flowing. Okay? You guys have any questions or ideas as we dig into this see the comments. Thanks for the sound check, Jill. I appreciate that. So if we were to onboard clients in into ClickUp, the first thing we'd want to know is if you could chime in, that would be great. How this applies to getting a client into ClickUp is first we want to tell them what's about to happen. So for example, down here in my example should have made these a little bit closer to each other. I am telling people on that first call that they are about to get an invite to ClickUp. We're going to bounce around a little bit today. Sorry, I should have made these closer. I'm going to tell them, hey, you're going to get an invitation to click up on the call. That's a conversation that we're having. Oops, just want that nice conversation box. Then in that same call I actually share my screen and show them this is what it's going to look like. I don't get into the weeds of it. I just kind of give them the rundown of here are the main places, here's the main things that you need to click on and we actually show them on my cursor from their perspective, limiting my view to only show their list or their dashboard, whatever that might be. You could even if you want to be an overachiever, you could log in to a guest account that has the same exact permissions as they do. And so this is about five minutes telling them this is about five or so minutes of showing them and tell show do apply. Once you tell them what you're about to do, you show them what they're about to do. You then have them do it and you're kind of sitting there by them as they do it. The way I do this with my process as I've just described here is I send that invite to ClickUp to them while we are on that call. So they get that invitation email, which can sometimes be confusing for people. They get that weird invitation that we can't customize. It's an email looks something like. Looks nothing like that, but you know what I mean. And they get that invitation and they need to log in. So some things you can have to have them to help them in the doing phase is to actually sit with them as they accept that invitation and join your ClickUp account. And I could have had a screenshot in here. I didn't prepare enough in advance but showing them how they click into this email is something you could do in the show stage. But that is also what they need to do in the do stage. What else I do in the do stage is when I'm in this phase, when we're on the call together, I tell them that their first task is to book our next call. I talked last time about the value of booking a call when you're going into a period of back. And forth. For me, after my first session, there is a period of back and forth that could happen. I want to book that next call during the first call. But rather than have that happen verbally, I want to train them to, to actually start using ClickUp. So what I have in their space when they first log in to ClickUp, again, just giving this story, this is not necessarily the right way. This is just a way that I found to be very helpful. When they log into their ClickUp in here, they see just one task and that one task just tells them to book our next call. And that's the only thing they have to do for that entire period of time. Usually it's about a week. One task, log into ClickUp, click on the tasks in there, use the link in that task to book our next call. And what that is is that is simply a doing that is having them do the thing. And if they have questions, they let me know. They can even do it on the call with use tasks or list information in ClickUp to have all of those links to important videos in in ClickUp. So once again I can really say you have a question. ClickUp. There's a spot in ClickUp for that. And that's kind of what we're hoping to build towards. It's one place that reduces that decision fatigue of the client trying to remember, okay, which place do I go to contact her? That's just a level of stress that we don't need or want. And so being consistent in where information is will also help with your clients both trusting and adhering to your process of using ClickUp. So other nitty gritty details you heard from some of my, I believe it was my offboarding video about an accounting firm about the power of explanations. And ClickUp is a really great tool for that as well. So when we're looking at a client who's trying to figure out ClickUp, it might be a little bit confused trying to figure out, huh, where do I go for things? It can be really nice to load your ClickUp space that's client facing with client ready information. So this depends on, you know, this varies based on what level of sharing you're giving your clients, whether they're guests on one list or they're getting just a dashboard or you're using a public list, that'll change what your capabilities are. But I love to use video to explain everything. So when they get that initial invitation, email, if I'm not explaining it on the call, which most of the time I am, or even if I am explaining it on the call before they get this invite email, which looks really scary, they'll get an email from me explaining how exactly to accept the invitation. So video right in there telling you, click on this, enter that, yada yada yada. Once they get into their list, which for me I'm sharing lists mostly, once they're in their list, they've got that list name. And once again I'm using oops, that's not how you spell name. I'm using that list info to either embed a video or link to a video, giving them a custom tour of their ClickUp space. So Tim had used the example of having like an actual review call to answer questions. I love that idea. If that's not something that you can fit into your workflow, having another session, having an either custom or a one time video can be a really great way to over explain. So this could be what I mean by custom or one time is this could be a video just for, let's just say Jill, since you were our nominee here, let's just say this is Jill. I can make a video just speaking to Jill just like this and say, hey Jill, this is where your information is. Click over here to find what you need, yada yada yada. Or I could have a standard video kind of in mass saying hello, dear client, this is what your space generally looks like. Yours might be a little different, but here's what you need to look for. These are recorded videos I can do on YouTube and embed them. I can do them on dub or loom or whatever you might be using to record that video and make it easier for them to navigate their way around. So yes, that education piece via email, via check ins, via embedded stuff in ClickUp, load up that space just like the offboard example for accountants. This thing, this video might take me five minutes to make custom, maybe more, let's say 15. Still great use of time if you're using it templated and keeping it the same every time. Still 15 minutes. Just have it loaded into your template folder, your template space, your template, whatever you're using to share with clients. So that way it's always there on every single view you have, on every single, whatever you have in ClickUp each page should have some kind of instructional something. If you're using a docs view, the first page of that doc should be this is a doc. This is what it's used for. This is how you navigate it. Little side note that I think is helpful here. I know this one's a little bit all over the place, but just trying to give you a bunch of good things to try. If you guys have used docks on a small monitor before, if any of you have a laptop that you work from and you also have a PC, say this is a dock in ClickUp ClickUp dock by default on smaller screens, the table of contents looking thing. All the pages and subpages in ClickUp are collapsed. One of the simplest little fixes you can do is is on that first page of the ClickUp doc, have text that says this. Click here to expand the sidebar. That is such a little thing. But because ClickUp docs, when the sidebar is collapsed, it has very small, it says the number of pages. So it might say 37 pages, but it's not very obvious. It's not easy to the eye. This is a little piece of instruction that you can have in every single template to to make it easier for your clients to actually use it. So these are a bunch of little quirks of loading up your ClickUp space, creating those templates one time and using them for everybody. The other practice which Tim talked about, but I'm also gonna include here, is the practice of having regular check ins using ClickUp. I spoke already about making ClickUp the hub for everything. This is no exception for what I do. I've got four main calls in most of my client projects and every single call starts, ends and lives in ClickUp. So when we're on the call, I use Zoom or you can use whatever meeting software you use. I have shared on my screen the ClickUp the entire time. So we are constantly navigating through demonstrating how to find things using that. For all of our note taking, I use like I talked about, a list. So I have tabs. These don't really look like tabs, but imagine they are. I have tabs for tasks and I have tabs for docs like we spoke about before, making it a hub. I put our session recordings and our notes from the meeting and our agenda for the meeting in that docs tab in ClickUp. This is giving that repetition and reinforcing that. ClickUp is where we need to go to do things. I'll admit my life is also a little bit easier because Most of the folks I work with already have used ClickUp in some capacity before we work together, but that's not all of them. And working with folks of all tech literacy, this is definitely, I mean, this is just a great question. So some more ideas to throw out at you, repetition, demonstrating what you're going to do, you know, tell, show, do, apply, all of that stuff will help this customer figure out why ClickUp is actually going to help them. And I think that's another important step here. We don't want to approach this, that we don't approach this in a way that's saying, dear customer, we want you to do this because it makes it more convenient for us. As the original thread up here, if you guys haven't seen it, go scroll down to the original one and throw your comment on it because I would love to hear your thoughts directly on this. But as some of the comments that were originally on here said, we are trying to make this something that is advantageous to our client because really, yes, having everything for our clients organized in ClickUp is better for us because it keeps us organized. But what does keeping us organized do? It gives us faster response times, it ensures nothing is missed. It allows us to share templates with different team members. It allows us to use live chat support versus email so it's faster. It allows us to track our time more transparently. If you're an OBM or VA thinking about how to frame all of this stuff as a win win, because it really is, you're in client service, everything you do is trying to make their life better. So that's more of a framework. But that will also help onboard those clients trying to think, what else do we have on here? There's a few more little things, but I don't think there's too much. Let's see, one second here. I think I had a few more. Well, okay, so a few other little pieces making it a hub for everything. I mentioned using chat in ClickUp. If you haven't started using that, that can be a very helpful tool to get your clients on there because they can now see when you're live. It really gets this feeling of more access by having them working in ClickUp. So when it comes to making clients want to use ClickUp, making it that win win, demonstrating the chat and being really available via chat, whether that means having a set appointment time on your calendar, that from 1pm to 2pm you're always going to just check up on all your chat so you've got a fast response time Whether it's dedicating a whole team member just to monitoring the chats. Using the chat feature in ClickUp can be a great way to get clients to use it because it feels, you know, it kind of feels like a Slack channel. And if you don't use Slack or any kind of communication tool with your clients other than email, it can be a nice upgrade that feels a little bit more personal. Try to think if there's anything else. I talked about giving an email before you actually invite them to it and making ClickUp feel required. I'm trying to think if there's any other big things. Oh, housekeeping piece. Just a general question I think Mario asked at one point a while back and just how exactly do we invite clients? I'm going to get rid of all this stuff. Flip back if you missed some of these drawings and what they're about. When we're inviting people into ClickUp and you want to make it easier for that client to use, to get in and use a space, what you invite them to matters. So in ClickUp there are the multiple levels of access, right? There's the admins, there's the members. I'm not going to go through a full side by side and there's the guests at a few different levels. And I don't think it's happening right now, but. Well, there is teams as well. Teams just kind of a whole separate thing. But regardless, let's focus on the top three right now when we're inviting clients into ClickUp. First of all, we use better handwriting than what I use here. I typically invite a client as a guest and the reason I do that is because it just keeps them separate. Unless you want your client to have access to all of your templates, which is a very kind of easy thing to accidentally over share. Adding all clients as guests is the easiest way to do that. And how you do that is actually not by using the invite people button, which is in the bottom left corner. Instead you invite them per list or per dashboard. So what I do when I'm inviting clients is I have a list for them that's just theirs and then I use two different dashboards that are shared with all clients which they have view only access to. And you have to go to that specific list, that specific dashboard, click on the three dots, click sharing and permissions and share it with that person as a guest. This is obviously can be an added cost depending on the plan that you have, but you know, depending on the level of access that you need for them. The reason I would not do it as members is because there's just members gives a lot, a lot of access and it's generally too much. You do not need to have your guest or your client facing stuff in their own space. I know a lot of people do that have a whole space called client services. You do not need to. You can very simply have a list in a folder in one space all lumped together. As long as you only share that one list, that is all they're going to see. It's not like when you share things on Google Drive where it shows the whole file path. That's not the case. It'll only show the thing that you share with them. So logistically that's how I would go about sharing it. Oh, actually, you know, and one more thing, sorry, we're going to stream of consciousness here. Let's talk about teams. Let's talk just briefly about teams. So we're going to invite clients as guests most of the time. But when it comes to actually working with those clients in there, I would really recommend you play with the teams feature. Now, I apologize off the top of my head since I wasn't planning on talking about this. I don't have. I'm not practicing my own advice of tell show to apply because I don't have all the details on teams right on my head right now. But teams are a feature in ClickUp that allow you. I think you can create one for free on most plans. Oh, sorry, I don't know if the top of my head. Guys, I'll come back in here with a comment and clarify. But teams are basically allowing you to create a group handle or a group tag or a group name in ClickUp and I think it is the bomb when working with clients. So if you're a bigger company in ClickUp, you could create something like at support and that would only ping, you know, the three people on your team that are support. Since many of us are in here as small teams, we probably aren't going to have a bunch of different accounting. We're not going to have a bunch of different teams. But what I would recommend you do, if it's available on the plan that you're already paying for, is create one team. One team called your company name. So for example, I have a team called ProcessDriven. And when you are training your clients, I recommend training them how to tag because it's important train them on how to tag this team. What I would do is then have every member of your actual member, every real person on your Team be a part of that team. So when the client tags this, the message goes out to your entire team saying, hey, client needs something. It makes it kind of a grab bag of support. If you're using chat especially, I think that's a really, really helpful use. And teams is built into a lot of the plans already. I talked about chat down here. Sorry, we're flipping all around today. Oh, I erased it, sorry. So I use a chat section with my clients and what I actually do is in that chat tab, that view called chat, I have a message in there ready for them when they first log on that already has an explanation of what chat is and how you can use it. And it tells them like, go ahead, while you're here, go down there and actually post your first comment in here. And in that message, I don't even know what I'm posting in that instruction. I tell them how to tag rocessdriven what it does and how to use it again, giving them instruction, prompting them to do it, asking if they have any questions. Basically, if you're looking for that exact verbiage of what I use when putting that standard support inquiry in there to prompt them to message me, to invite them to ask questions, I have the exact message in this original thread started by James here, where you can actually go. So right below here my comment, which is not here currently, I actually have the exact quote of the message I put in, which I can only hope there's not typos because now I shared it so broadly, but who cares, it's authentic. So if you go down to this thread, which is from May 24, you'll see my actual message that I put into that support to prompt clients to use the chat to use support because I think it's even handier than inviting a client into Slack. All right, so we talked about onboarding, just to review. We talked about finding where it falls in your normal process and deciding what is the moment that you are ready to bring them into ClickUp, the critical moment, when can you invite them? And when you invite them, can you warn them that you're going to invite them? Can you do with them the things they need to do to create their account? Can you sit with them and prompt them questions and get them ready to apply that knowledge by creating and working in their own ClickUp account? Can you start with a minimum viable task, even call it all the things making it very easy for them to feel accomplished that they've done something and that there's a reason for them to be in that tool. Then, after they're in the account and they're feeling comfortable, can you use chat and other methods, videos, etc. To remind them as to why they're there? To give them more information when they're ready for it, and whenever they're looking for something, have a resource there to describe exactly what they need to do. Additionally, can you make ClickUp a part of every moment in the client journey? If not, you probably shouldn't be using it. If you have calls, share the ClickUp screen. If you have invoices, link them in ClickUp. If you're using Dubsado, embed the portal into ClickUp. If you're using invoices from elsewhere, link that complete invoice into a Docs tab, et cetera. Make ClickUp the hub or don't use it at all. Okay, so there's that. And whoop, there we go. We're going to go in the wrong one. I want to go to questions anyway, but that is pretty much it for this one. That's kind of the topic of today is getting clients into onboarding. I'm sorry, this was nonlinear. This was just kind of going through ideas that came up as you're talking through that thread. If you have questions about onboarding clients into ClickUp, please leave them below. I would love to hear them and I can get back to the comments. If you have questions about teams or tagging a collective group in ClickUp, definitely. Let me know if you have suggestions for what we should talk about next time on this on this live show. Let me know in the comments. Jump back over here. Remember that Tell Show Do Apply piece when you are trying to, I mean, change anyone's behavior, but especially a client. Especially a client who's not familiar with ClickUp. And yeah, I think there's, there's probably more questions like which whose account should you be using? The clients are yours and all that stuff. But I just want to go back to. I've been like just keeping this on here because I think it's such a helpful way. This is again a mapping. We are thinking from the armchair here as to what your client onboarding should look like in ClickUp. But unfortunately, even with the best prep, you will not be able to really get anything done until you start trying. So being afraid of bringing clients into ClickUp is understandable. But do as much planning as you can. Start prepping these little pieces, these little videos and then try it. Because you will not know what your clients hate until you do it. You won't know what your clients love until you do it. What my clients love, your clients might hate what what I love, you might hate. It is all subjective. This is a person thing. That's the nature of services. So think about your brand, think about your values, think about your person and you and design something that works for all parties. So that's just gonna bring it home there with a reminder to just go do it. So your questions are welcome. I'm gonna leave it back on here and I will see you guys next Wednesday. We're probably in the Facebook group long before then, so thanks for watching. If you want some more information about this stuff and you're tired of just trying to duct tape together YouTube videos to figure it out on your own, check out processdriven. Co, maybe book a call, check out some of our services. We do this stuff professionally and we'd be happy to help you out.