Do I standardise my client systems or keep them custom per client?
Rosalie TremblayOperations Consultant · Online Business ManagersCanadaExploring·6d ago62
Discussion
Purpose
Decide which client-facing systems to standardise first and which to keep custom, before attempting to package into a membership.
Six clients in now, all referral, and every single one got a slightly different setup because I built it around them. My friend who does the same work says I'm insane, I should have one intake, one reporting format, one everything so I can hand pieces off.
But I'm two years in, exploring this properly, and honestly the reason people say yes to me is the custom part.
I'd like to build a membership off this eventually, which is the actual reason I'm asking. If it's all bespoke I can't package it. If I standardise too early I think I lose the thing that gets me referred.
Where's the line? What did you standardise first, and what did you regret standardising?
Standardise everything, honestly. One intake form, one reporting template, one process. Clients don't actually want bespoke, they want it to work. The custom stuff is just hiding how scared you are of losing them.
I did this backwards for a year and it cost me. Built a beautiful onboarding sequence, one intake, automated welcome, the whole thing, and my completion rate barely moved. What moved it was recording a two-minute loom after every session. Same script, same structure, no personalisation at all, just my face and one thing they did well. Retention went from roughly half finishing to most of them finishing.
So I'd separate two things you're calling the same thing. Systems that carry judgement (what you decide, how you frame it, what you tell them) should stay custom for a while yet. Systems that carry logistics (intake, scheduling, where files live, when they get an update) should be standardised yesterday. Those are not a trade-off, they're different problems.
The test I used: if a client never saw this process, would they notice? If no, standardise it hard. If yes, that's your product, don't touch it.
On the membership question, I'd be careful. Packaging bespoke work into a membership usually means you're selling your judgement at a volume your calendar can't hold. That's the part that breaks, not the systems.
Whatever you do, don't build it in a tool yet. I've now got four platforms for four clients and none of them talk to each other and I spend more time maintaining the systems than doing the work. Nail the process on paper first.
I standardised my intake and my calls went up. People will pay for the custom part but they'll quietly resent the admin. Anything that feels like paperwork is where the referral dies.
