The client creative SOP

The client work is not the creative, it is the context

Onboarding a new client brand, kickoff to first approved asset

The goal of onboarding is not to start producing quickly. It is to reach the point where you can produce without asking a question, and where a disagreement about output can be settled by pointing at a document. Budget a week of calendar time, most of which is you waiting on them.

1. 1

   1. Read everything public before the call

   Their site, their store or app listing, their last thirty social posts, their reviews, their press, and their two most visible competitors. Come to the kickoff with a draft of what you think their positioning is. Never start with a blank page in front of a client: a wrong draft gets corrected in five minutes, a blank page takes an hour and produces adjectives. Never start without: at least one honest look at what their existing creative already does.

2. 2

   2. Run the kickoff against the brief template, not a conversation

   One hour, screen shared, the brief template open, filling fields live. A conversation produces vibes; a form produces answers you can cite later. Record it with permission and keep the recording with the brief. Never start without: the person on the call being the one who can actually approve work, or being able to name who is.

3. 3

   3. Get the claims list and the no-go list in writing

   Two short lists. What you may say about this product, and what you may never say, including anything their legal team has already struck, competitor comparisons, health or financial outcomes, and words the founder hates. These are the two fields clients skip and the two that cause every genuinely expensive problem. Never start without: both lists, in writing, from a named person.

4. 4

   4. Build the brand context and make them look at it

   Turn the source (website, storefront, App Store or Play listing) into a saved brand record: identity, palette, fonts, logo, imagery, product catalog, tone. Then show it to the client before you produce anything. It takes ten minutes and it catches the wrong logo variant, the retired palette and the product they stopped selling, all of which are cheap now and expensive after you have made twenty assets. Never start without: the client confirming the palette, the logo file and the product list are current.

5. 5

   5. Collect assets and, separately, the rights to them

   Product photography, brand fonts, the logo in vector, any existing video, and the customer photos or testimonials they want used. For every item ask one question: do you have the right to use this, and does that right extend to paid ads. Licensed stock, a photographer's limited-use images and an employee's face are three different answers. Never start without: written confirmation of usage rights on anything featuring a real person.

6. 6

   6. Agree the deliverable, the placements and the ratios

   Not 'social content'. Three 4:5 statics and one 9:16 video per month, for these placements, in these languages, delivered as these file types. Ambiguity here becomes free work later, because the client is not being unreasonable when they assume a square version was included. Never start without: the exact output list written into the scope.

7. 7

   7. Name the decision-maker and the review window in the contract

   One person approves. Everyone else gives input to that person before the round opens. Write the response window into the agreement (two working days is normal) and write down what happens when it lapses: the timeline moves by the same number of days, and the batch is not reopened. Never start without: a named approver and a stated window.

8. 8

   8. Set the disclosure position before you make anything synthetic

   If any of the work will use AI creators, generated voices or generated imagery, agree it explicitly now and put it in the contract. Agree the label you will use (creator-style or AI-generated), agree that no synthetic person will be presented as a customer, and agree who is responsible for platform disclosure requirements. This conversation is easy before the work exists and very hard after. Never start without: an agreed disclosure line in the contract.

9. 9

   9. Produce one small thing first, on purpose

   Before the first full batch, make a single asset in the smallest format in scope and send it with a specific question: does this sound like you. You are not testing production, you are testing whether the brief is correct and whether the approver actually approves things. A client who takes nine days to react to one image will not react to twelve in two days. Never start without: one calibration asset approved.

10. 10

    10. Write the operating agreement and send it once

    One page: what you deliver, when, in what format, who approves, how many rounds, what counts as a new request, how you will handle disclosure, and where the files live. Send it after onboarding, not during the first disagreement. Every difficult conversation in this document becomes easy if you can answer it by quoting a page they already agreed to. Never start without: it being sent and acknowledged.

The client creative brief template

Fifteen fields. Fill them live on the kickoff call. The third column exists because clients answer these fields badly by default, and a bad answer that goes unchallenged is a revision round you will pay for later. If a field cannot be answered, that is information: write down who can answer it and when.