Little known fact: the best run agencies use checklists for everything. As the CEO and co-founder of Teamwork.com, I talk to hundreds of our agency customers every single month.
I also used to run an agency myself, so I can tell you with certainty that when it comes to running a successful business, checklist templates are not only a time-saver, but they're also a game-changer.
From project discovery, client onboarding, project delivery, and quality control, to staff onboarding, account management, internal processes, accounting, and more, you can leverage different checklist templates for just about anything.
Checklists are the secret weapon to getting your business super organized and efficient. They also give you peace of mind and the ability to scale.
Here’s why checklists are awesome
There's a famous book, The Checklist Manifesto that says checklists are the answer to a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. The author states that the remedy is in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist.
In Teamwork.com, your checklists templates are called 'Task Templates'
You can manage your checklists with a feature we call Task Templates. You can customize these templates to your heart's content, but we've also got a bunch of free, pre-made templates you can leverage. Here's what we love about them:
You can set really smart defaults for all your client projects, saving you manual setup time.
You can take the time to polish your templates and benefit from that work time and time again.
You keep improving those templates every time you notice an issue or see the potential for improvement.
You can compare planned time on projects vs actual and keep optimizing your timelines by providing more details and sub-tasks.
Getting started with checklist templates in Teamwork.com
Every business has staff that comes and goes, so getting more familiar with templates is a great place to start.
Create a simple template project called “Staff onboarding" and add in a few tasks around learning and getting up to speed. Then ask your team to contribute their onboarding ideas as well to bolster your original checklist. Here are a few examples of tasks:
Watch this welcome video
Read our team handbook
Collect your swag
Sign in to your Teamwork.com account
Say hello to the team on chat
Boom! You just created your first template. You can make a copy of this template every time you onboard a new teammate, and you can evolve this list as things occur to you or processes change.
Now, start creating more templates for different areas of your business and what your systems scale.
Get some peace of mind
Templates in Teamwork.com are very powerful. Before you know it, your agency is running like a well-oiled machine. And better yet – you have peace of mind.
With your whole team up and running on Teamwork.com, you can finally go on vacation and confidently NOT check into work. Knowing that everything is organized and humming along perfectly behind the scenes is nirvana, and that's what we want you to feel.
Learn more about templates
If you're a Teamwork.com customer, be sure to check out this 3-minute video on how to set up templates. it's super easy to get started.
Welcome to the wonderful world of checklist templates. They'll transform your entire business (and your life)!
More resources for agencies: