Order of Operations: The Four Phases of Building Client Experience Systems (In the Only Order That Works)

Y’all, this one is a ramble. I had a bunch of thoughts rattling around about the way I actually build client experience systems with my clients, and I needed to get them out of my head and onto a podcast. What came out is a name I’ve been circling for a month: Order of Operations.

If your brain just went straight back to middle school math — the problems where you had to do things in a specific sequence or the answer came out wrong — congratulations. That’s exactly where I was going.

Listen to the Episode

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The four phases of my Order of Operations framework — and why skipping straight to phase three is the reason your workflows never got finished
• The brand-new first phase I’ve been quietly doing with clients for five years and never named until now
• The three questions I ask about your offer before I’ll build a single system around it
• Why I now make clients test their own workflows before I ever touch them — and what that skill pays you back later
• Why the five phases of the client experience are not the order you build them in
• How to decide which phase to build first based on where your current clients actually are right now

What Is the Order of Operations Framework?

Order of Operations is the four-phase sequence I use to design and implement client experience systems: Check It, Map It, Build It, Test It.

1. Check It — review the offer itself to confirm it’s profitable, sustainable, and enjoyable before building anything around it
2. Map It — map every touchpoint in the client journey, from inquiry through offboarding, before opening any tool
3. Build It — create the assets, forms, emails, schedulers, and workflows inside your CRM
4. Test It — run the entire system end to end as a pretend client before a real one ever sees it

The tools are flexible. The sequence is not. You can build this in Dubsado, HoneyBook, 17hats, Sprout Studio, or VSCO Workspace — but you do these four things in this order, every time.

Why I Renamed My Framework (Blame Megan Yelaney)

I want to give credit where it’s due, because this whole line of thinking started with a conversation.

Megan Yelaney was on the podcast for episode 334, all about the impact your origin story has on your business. One of the things she said that stuck with me is that you can have more than one origin story, and you get to choose which one you’re leaning into right now.

And right now? I am fully in my professor era.

Everything I’m doing at the moment traces back to my former career teaching in a university — the way I structure my done-with-you offers, the way I explain things, the way I insist on a sequence. So when I sat down to revamp the framework behind Systems in Session, “Order of Operations” was sitting right there.

I did try to come up with cute names for each of the four phases. I sat with it. And then I decided it truly does not matter, so we’re going with the plain ones. They might change later. For now, here’s what they are and why each one exists.

Phase One: Check It

This is the brand-new one. Not new to my process — new to my framework.

I have been doing this with clients for five years and never once put it on a slide, and that stops now. Before we build anything, we take a deep dive into your offer.

I’m not an offer strategist. I could probably pretend to be one on the internet, but that’s not what this is. What I’m doing is making sure I completely understand what you sell, what you deliver, and the timeline you deliver it on — before we build systems around any of it.

Here’s why this is no longer optional with me.

Systems in Session is 60 days. There is nothing worse than spending 60 days building a beautiful client experience for an offer that was never going to be profitable, that you can’t sustain, or that you’re going to quietly stop selling four months from now. That’s a waste of your time and mine.

So we check three things.

Is it profitable?

Not “does it bring in money.” Does the revenue hold up against what it actually costs you to deliver — including your hours.

Is it sustainable?

Can you deliver this at volume, in your real life, in the season you’re actually in? An offer that only works when nothing else is happening is not an offer. It’s a fluke.

Do you enjoy delivering it?

I’m serious about this one. If you dread it, you will find reasons not to sell it, and no amount of automation is going to fix that. Whether you like doing the thing genuinely matters to whether the system gets used.

Phase Two: Map It

This is the one I have not shut up about for at least seven months.

Before you open a tool. Before you commit to a CRM. Before you touch a single template — you need to know what you want to happen with your clients at every single touchpoint, from the moment someone contacts you all the way through delivery and then offboarding. And yes, offboarding is its own phase now.

Get it on paper. Or get it into the client journey mapping tool inside the Systems Professor App, which I’m a little obsessed with. Either way, you’re writing down every single time you touch base with a client, every time you do something for them, and every time they have to do something for you.

Every one of those moments has a place in your process. And almost every one of them needs some kind of automation attached to it — a reminder for you, a reminder for them, or a check that the thing actually got done.

I am all about the automations. But automations only work when you know what you’re automating.

More on why this phase comes before the tool: Why We Design the Client Experience Before We Build Workflows in Dubsado.

Phase Three: Build It

This is the part I’m known for. Workflows that work exactly the way they’re supposed to.

It’s also where I started. Back when I was doing done-for-you, and later when I had the DIY course, my whole promise was essentially I’m going to teach you how to build these workflows, let’s go.

I don’t lead with that anymore.

The more people I’ve helped, the clearer it got that there’s a pile of work that has to happen before you can build anything worth building. Build It is where we update or create your assets — the forms, the emails, the proposals, the schedulers — and then design the workflows and actually put them together in your CRM.

But it’s phase three for a reason. If you start here, you’re building on top of an offer nobody checked and a journey nobody mapped. That’s how you end up with half-finished workflows you’re too nervous to turn on.

Phase Four: Test It

This is my favorite phase, and it’s the one that makes everything before it worth the effort.

You test it first

Yes, I now require my clients to test their own workflows before they hand them to me.

I have a video walkthrough. I have a whole process for it. And I teach it on purpose, because testing is a skill that pays you back every single time you build a system for a future offer.

So you go through your own process as a pretend client. Every email you receive, every form, every contract, every asset — you look at all of it and confirm it shows up the way you built it.

Then I test it

Once you’ve genuinely tried, you send it to me and I run the whole thing start to finish.

It’s fine if you missed things. I just need you to make the attempt first.

In my test, I’m telling you what you nailed, what still needs work, and where I think there’s an opportunity you didn’t see. Maybe your timelines need adjusting. Maybe there’s a touchpoint we didn’t think of when we mapped the journey. This is also the moment where new ideas show up, because you can see the whole thing running for the first time.

Nothing is set in stone. Your systems are built to be flexible. The order you build them in is not.

Do You Have to Build Your Systems From Inquiry to Offboarding?

No. And I want to say that as clearly as I can, because I think I’ve accidentally caused this confusion myself.

I talk constantly about the five phases of the client experience: inquiry, booking, onboarding, service and delivery, and offboarding. Somewhere along the way, people started hearing that as a build order.

It isn’t. I’ve said this on the podcast, in blog posts, and in emails, but here it is again in case you missed it: the five phases describe your client’s journey, not your build sequence.

What I actually want is for you to build in whatever order gets you the biggest return right now.

If you’re mostly booked for the season

Heading into fall, most of my photographers are in busy season. If you’re already at 60, 70, 80 percent booked for the rest of the year, it makes very little sense to pour your energy into your inquiry and booking processes.

Look at your onboarding. Your service and delivery. Maybe your offboarding.

Where are your clients sitting inside your offer right now? Build the systems those people are about to walk through, so the work you do this month actually touches someone this month.

If you’re still steadily getting leads

Then we start at inquiry. Obviously.

Because the very next person who fills out your contact form gets to move through your new process from the beginning, and you get to watch it work.

Either way, any phase you build saves you time going forward and is likely to change how your current clients experience you. That matters more than people think. If the clients you’re working with today have a better experience than the ones you worked with last year, your odds of getting rehired, referred, and reviewed go up. That’s the whole game — rave reviews, referrals, and repeat clients.

Related: 3 Ways Your Systems Can Generate More Revenue in Your Business.

So Does the Order of Operations Make Sense?

Check the offer. Map the journey. Build the assets and the workflows. Test everything before a real client ever touches it.

That’s it.

And if you’re reading this thinking okay Colie, this sounds great, but winter is when I’m actually going to do this — remember what I said. You don’t have to start at inquiry. We start wherever it helps the clients you have right now.

If you want me in it with you, that’s what Systems in Session is. Sixty days, done with you, weekly calls, and you come out the other side knowing how to run and change your own system. Details are at coliejames.com/systems.

And if phase two is where you’re stuck — you know the journey matters but you’ve never actually gotten it out of your head — The Experience Edit is a 10-day sprint that does exactly that.

Prefer to hear me ramble it out loud? Listen to the full episode above.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Order of Operations framework?

Order of Operations is Colie James’s four-phase sequence for building client experience systems: Check It (review whether the offer is profitable, sustainable, and enjoyable), Map It (document every client touchpoint from inquiry through offboarding), Build It (create the assets and workflows inside your CRM), and Test It (run the full system as a pretend client before a real one does). The tools are flexible; the sequence isn’t.

Why should I review my offer before building systems?

Because building a client experience around an unsustainable offer wastes the entire build. A 60-day system build for something you’ll stop selling in four months costs you the time twice — once to build it, once to redo it. Checking the offer first means confirming the revenue holds up against the hours it takes to deliver, that you can deliver it in a busy season, and that you don’t dread doing it.

Do I have to build my client experience systems in order from inquiry to offboarding?

No. Inquiry, booking, onboarding, service and delivery, and offboarding describe the client’s journey — not the order you build in. Build the phase that will touch your current clients soonest. If you’re 70 percent booked for the season, start with onboarding or delivery. If you’re still getting leads, start at inquiry so the next person who fills out your form moves through the new process.

Should I map my client journey before choosing a CRM?

Yes. Mapping first means you know what your system has to do before you evaluate tools that claim to do it. You’ll write down every touchpoint — every time you contact a client, every time you do something for them, every time they owe you something — and most of those touchpoints need an automation attached. Choosing a tool before you know that is how people end up paying for a CRM they never finish setting up.

Why should I test my own workflows instead of having someone test them for me?

Testing is a skill that pays you back every time you launch a new offer. If you can run your own system end to end as a pretend client — opening every email, filling out every form, reviewing every contract — you can build and troubleshoot future systems yourself instead of waiting on someone else. Colie requires her Systems in Session clients to test their own builds first, then she runs a full second test to catch what they missed and suggest improvements.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

• Your Origin Story Is Your Marketing Superpower — Here’s How to Tell It with Megan Yelaney (episode 334) — the conversation that kicked all of this off
• How Systems Generate Revenue and Sustainability in Your Business — my guest episode on Megan’s podcast, Business Not As Usual
• Why We Design the Client Experience Before We Build Workflows in Dubsado
• 3 Ways Your Systems Can Generate More Revenue in Your Business
• Systems in Session — the 60-day done-with-you build
• The Experience Edit — the 10-day mapping and communication sprint