01 — CONTEXT: Advisory Onboarding Kit v2
Input definitions, validation rules, the patterns the kit enforces, the special-sauce protection rule, and the audience boundary. Restructured from v1 to reflect the two-input design.
The Two Inputs
Input A: Universal Process Data (ALREADY CAPTURED)
The universal advisory onboarding process was extracted through 4 weeks of Monday extraction sessions (4/27, 5/4, 5/11, 5/18) with all 7 TPC members. This input is complete. The kit reads it; it does not re-extract it.
| Component | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The five spine elements | Locked | cyp/tpc/builds/advisory-onboarding-patterns-2026-05-04.md + 4 MM sessions |
| The package-design layer | Locked | 5/18 session — Bev's table-of-services model |
| Design constraints (5 named) | Locked | Surfaced across 4 weeks of extraction |
| Locked vocabulary | Locked | File 02 of this kit |
| Audience boundary | Locked | This file (below) |
This input does not need to be gathered per member. It applies universally. Every roadmap the kit produces references these patterns. Any future refinement to Input A happens through Mode 2 (kit improvement), not through per-member extraction.
Input B: Per-Member Offer Data (AI-GATHERED)
The member-specific details about their advisory package. Gathered by AI using the structured extraction in file 06. No Kathryn required.
| Data point | Required | Example (Rob's practice) |
|---|---|---|
| Package name | Yes | Advisory engagement — Foncannon Tax |
| What's included | Yes | Year-round tax planning (up to 3 strategies), quarterly estimated tax planning, year-end tax projection, annual personal + business tax returns, 4 seasonal advisory meetings |
| What's separate | Yes | Investment management (referred), bookkeeping cleanup, major life events (sale of business, equity transition, multi-state moves) |
| Pricing structure (advisor-internal, not client-facing) | Yes | Boundary only: what's bundled vs. what triggers separate pricing. Dollar amounts stay advisor-internal. |
| Team roles in delivery | Yes | Rob (advisor), Caitlin (operations manager), Natalie (executive admin), Daniel (tax prep + accounting), Barbara (bookkeeping) |
| Tools the client interacts with | Yes | QuickBooks Online, ATOM client portal |
| Cadence / meeting rhythm | Yes | Seasonal: May (kickoff), late July (mid-year check-in), early October (working session), December (year-end + next-year setup) |
| First-win candidate | Yes | Reduce next quarterly estimated tax payment via specific tax-planning strategy; dollar-measurable, 30-day implementation |
| Welcome experience design | Yes | Personal welcome message from Rob within 48 hours of payment + outline of first 30 days + introduction to the team (who handles what) |
| Completion gate criteria | Yes | Technical onboarding done + first-win strategy identified at kickoff + all four seasonal meetings booked + mutual responsibility doc signed |
| Practice type | Yes | Lean tax practice (solo practitioner with small team) vs. institutional (firm with productized packages) vs. coaching |
Validation: file 06 (AI extraction) includes validation checks — are all data points captured? Do they make sense together? Are there gaps that need follow-up?
Input Priority Hierarchy
When inputs conflict or are ambiguous:
- Practice reference data wins for proper nouns (names, tools, firm details). Overrides any other source.
- Per-member offer data (Input B) wins for practice-specific detail (trigger, sequence, cadence, first-win, team, tools).
- The five patterns + package-design layer (Input A) win for universal spine elements.
- Cohort decisions table wins for terminology (what "onboarding" means, what "trigger" means).
- Existing vault conventions win for file format, kit structure, and HTML styling.
The Five Patterns + Package-Design Layer
Extracted from 4 weeks of cohort extraction (4/27, 5/4, 5/11, 5/18). These are the universal spine. Every roadmap the kit produces must address them.
1. Pre-schedule the cadence
Book the year's advisory meetings before the work starts — at onboarding, not as the year unfolds. First-in-line scheduling is the jankiness; pre-scheduling is the spine.
- Lean tax-practice variant: seasonal cadence anchored to tax/fiscal year — kickoff, mid-year check-in, fall working session, year-end review + next-year setup
- Institutional tax-practice variant: seasonal cadence + cleanup-as-separate-project carved out as a discrete pre-engagement
- Coaching-practice variant: activation-then-steady — weekly for 2-4 weeks, then monthly
- Flex point: the cadence shape (frequency, timing, anchor events) flexes by practice
- Spine: the year is on the calendar before work starts
2. Living document, not static PDF
The artifact format is a working document the firm owns and tracks, visible to client + firm + assistant. The firm drives it. The client contributes to it but doesn't own the tracking.
- Failure mode this prevents: PDFs filled out once, lost in browser sessions, never updated, never tracked.
- Spine: the roadmap is shared, updateable, and lives somewhere both sides can see.
3. Mutual responsibility, in writing, signed off
Every onboarding has a written, signed document specifying what the firm does, what the client does, by when. Format flexes; commitment doesn't.
- Lean variant: one-page action plan, "what I'm working on / what I need you to work on" with dates
- Coaching variant: formal signed mutual-expectations doc with named consequences for non-engagement
- Institutional variant: client expectations document covering firm's plate vs. client's plate, integrated with the engagement letter
- Spine: the document exists, both sides have seen it, both sides have signed/acknowledged it
4. First win, fast, measurable in dollars
A concrete, dollar-measurable result the client gets within 30 days of the trigger. Identified at kickoff; delivered within 30 days. Anything longer than 30 days loses urgency.
- Lean tax-practice variant: reduce the next quarterly estimated tax payment via a specific tax-planning strategy; client sees the dollar amount of the reduction at kickoff; execution within 30 days
- Coaching-practice variant: identify a cash leak via a diagnostic tool; client commits to closing one; deliver within 2 weeks
- Flex point: win type (tax savings, cash-leak recovery, fee-recovery, other)
- Spine: fast, measurable, the client can point to it. They feel the engagement justifies itself before steady-state kicks in.
5. Welcome experience > logistics
The first thing a new client receives is NOT a form to fill out. The welcome experience fills the space between "I'm a client" and "we're working together" with something that reinforces the decision.
- Variants: welcome video, welcome letter, personal message from the advisor, gift, pre-call questionnaire, or some combination
- Spine: the first touchpoint signals what they just bought before the logistics begin
6. Package-design layer (added 5/18)
What's in the advisory package vs. what's a separate project. This is upstream of the trigger — without it, the rest of the onboarding builds on undefined scope.
- Institutional model: table of services attached to the engagement letter. Only marked services are included. Unmarked services are listed but priced separately. Calendar-cutoff rules for inclusion of seasonal deliverables (e.g., the first tax return). Cleanup-as-separate-project pattern.
- Lean model: simpler — one package tier with named carve-outs (e.g., investment management as a separate commission arrangement)
- Coaching model: group + 1:1 + activation cycle defined; project work scoped separately
- Spine: what's in the package is named. What's a separate project is named. The line is drawn before the engagement starts.
Special-Sauce Protection Rule
This kit serves multiple practitioners. The kit's spine is universal; member-specific competitive edge stays with the member. Without this rule, careful members hold back during extraction, and the kit ends up thin.
When building the roadmap:
- Capture universal patterns as the spine (e.g., "first win within 30 days, dollar-measurable")
- Capture member-specific tactics as variants noted with attribution (e.g., "the lean tax-practice variant: reduce quarterly estimated tax payment via a named tax-planning strategy") — in client-facing output, attribute to the practice using the kit; in cohort-internal documentation, attribute to the source practice
- Never make the kit's spine depend on another practice's proprietary content
Test: Does any element of the spine REQUIRE proprietary content from a specific practice to function? If yes, generalize the spine — the proprietary content moves to a variant.
In the AI extraction (file 06): The extraction opens with the special-sauce framing: "The parts of your practice that make you differentiated stay yours. We're after the structure that makes your onboarding work — the universal pattern, not your proprietary tactics."
See cyp/tpc/lessons-learned/lesson-special-sauce-protection-2026-05-19.md for full rationale.
Audience Boundary — In vs. Out
The offer data contains advisor-internal detail. The roadmap is client-facing. Filter:
| Stays IN the roadmap (client-facing) | Stays OUT of the roadmap (advisor-internal) |
|---|---|
| The cadence — months, dates, meeting purposes | Pricing detail, package architecture decisions |
| The first-win identification + dollar amount | The advisor's internal success metrics |
| What the client will do, what the firm will do, by when | Failure modes the advisor named from prior clients |
| Named artifacts the client interacts with (roadmap itself, action plan, mutual responsibility doc) | The advisor's emotional friction about deploying to existing clients |
| Tools the client interacts with (QBO, client portal, scheduling link) | The advisor's internal PMS workflow (ATOM, Karbon back-end) |
| The completion gate language ("onboarding is complete when...") | Calibration notes for the next kit run |
Default direction: when in doubt, exclude from the client-facing output. The advisor can always add it during their delivery; the kit can't unsay something it included by mistake.
Design Constraints
These are non-negotiable. Surfaced across 4 weeks of cohort extraction.
| Constraint | Source | What this means for the kit |
|---|---|---|
| Human-checkpoint requirement | Bev 5/4 — "I don't want it to update that document just from transcripts" | The kit cannot prescribe auto-updates to client records or reference data without a practitioner-review step. |
| Personal first, team later | Linda 5/4 deployment preference | The kit's rollout guidance supports solo-practitioner adoption before team adoption. The roadmap can be produced and used by an advisor alone, without team buy-in as a precondition. |
| Stop sending forms | Tracy 5/4 — clients don't know what they don't know | Easy data via form; real data via conversation. The AI extraction (file 06) IS this principle at the input layer — a guided conversation, not a form to fill out. |
| Confidentiality posture | Bev 4/27 — "never give Claude a Social Security number" | The kit's roadmap and supporting artifacts must specify what NEVER touches AI tooling. SSNs, EINs, account numbers, and other identifying financial data stay in human-only channels. |
| Special-sauce protection | Kathryn 2026-05-19 | See above. |
| No Kathryn dependency for per-member extraction | v2 design correction, 2026-05-20 | The per-member offer data must be gatherable by AI without Kathryn in the loop. The universal process comes from the Monday sessions Kathryn already facilitated. |
Gap Protocol
If any of the following are missing or insufficient, the kit cannot produce a golden-quality output. Stop and resolve before continuing.
| Missing | Impact | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| AI extraction not completed (Input B missing) | Output will be generic — no practice-specific content to populate. | Run file 06 AI extraction with the member before running this kit. |
| Practice reference data missing or stale | Proper nouns leak as guesses into client-facing output. | Pause kit run. Populate or update the member's reference data file. |
| Trigger not locked | Post-trigger steps have no anchor. | Confirm trigger during AI extraction (file 06, question 1). |
| Package-design layer not specified (institutional practice) | Scope creep risk; client confusion about what's included. | Ensure AI extraction captures the included/separate boundary. |
| Completion gate not specified | The roadmap has no endpoint. | Ensure AI extraction captures completion criteria. |
| First-win candidate not named | The roadmap's core value proposition is missing. | Re-run the first-win section of the AI extraction. |
| Welcome experience not defined | The first 7 days section becomes a gap flag instead of a concrete experience. | Re-run the welcome experience section of the AI extraction. |
Pre-Build Validation Gate
Before producing any output, confirm:
- [ ] AI extraction output exists for this member (file 06 completed)
- [ ] Practice reference data is current (last updated within 30 days)
- [ ] Trigger is named and locked
- [ ] Package-design layer is specified (or explicitly waived for lean practices with bundled offerings)
- [ ] Completion gate criteria are named
- [ ] First-win candidate is named with dollar-measurable example
- [ ] Welcome experience design is specified (not "TBD")
- [ ] Special-sauce protection has been applied to the captured content
- [ ] Audience boundary has been reviewed — advisor-internal items flagged for exclusion
- [ ] All Input B data points are present and validated (file 06 extraction checklist)