May is the moment. If you run creative projects for clients and your H2 calendar looks quiet, the problem is not demand. It is timing. Clients who haven’t started their H2 planning conversations yet are the ones who will scramble in July, brief you in August, and expect October deliverables. You can either wait for that call or make a different one now.
This is for creative partners, co-ops, and studio leads who want to fill their H2 pipeline with well-structured projects, not reactive ones.
TL;DR: what to do before June
- Reach out to your key clients this week and open the H2 conversation
- Guide your client through the brief rather than waiting for a polished one to arrive
- Define your onboarding process and send it before work starts
- Set your revision structure in writing before any creative work begins
- Ask for their summer PTO calendar and share yours
- Name one approval owner on their side before the project kicks off
The timeline math (and why it’s your job to explain it)
Most clients do not think in production timelines. They think in launch dates. A Q4 campaign going live in October feels far away in May. It isn’t.
Work backwards: an October 6 launch needs creative production to start by mid-July at the latest, assuming 8–12 weeks for the work itself. Add your onboarding period before that. Add two weeks for your client to get internal alignment and send you a usable brief. That puts the brief-send deadline at late June, which means the conversation needs to happen now.
Your clients will not run this math without your help. Walking a client through the timeline in May is the difference between a well-structured H2 project and a compressed one that bruises the relationship by September.
Open the conversation, don’t wait for the brief
The brief is not where H2 projects start. The conversation is.
Reach out to your active clients and the ones you want back in the second half of the year. Ask what they’re planning for Q3 and Q4. Not to sell, but to understand. A client who hasn’t thought about H2 yet is more receptive to a scheduling conversation in May than a scope conversation in August.
When the timing is right, offer to walk them through the brief. Most clients know what they want to achieve. Fewer know how to articulate it in a way that gives you what you need to do good work. Your job is to ask the right questions: who is this for, what does success look like, who gives final approval, what cannot change. They write the brief. You make sure it covers what actually matters.
Wellingtone’s 2025 research found that around two-thirds of organisations report project delays caused by unclear requirements. A brief shaped by the right questions is a brief that works for both sides. If your client can’t do a synchronous kickoff call, the async brief covers how to run that process remotely.
Own your onboarding process
Onboarding is not something clients do to you. It is something you run.
Before any work starts, send your onboarding package: what you need from them (brand assets, voice guide, stakeholder map), how feedback will work, who the approval owner is, and what the revision structure looks like. The depth of that onboarding scales with the project. A short engagement needs a lighter version; a longer campaign needs more.
What onboarding is not: a single kickoff call and then straight into production. That gap is where context gets lost, assumptions compound, and scope creep starts. Function Point (2025) reports that 79% of creative agencies absorb work beyond agreed scope without additional pay. Most of that starts at the beginning, not the middle.
Set the revision structure before work starts
The revision architecture for a project is yours to define. Not as a constraint on the client, but as a structure that protects both of you.
Two consolidated feedback rounds followed by one final approval works for most H2 projects. The key word is consolidated: all stakeholders submit input together, not in sequence. No drip feedback. No “one more thing” after a round closes.
Put this in writing before the first deliverable. Define how many rounds are included, who collects feedback on their side, and what triggers a scope conversation. A client who agrees to this at kickoff is a client who can be held to it later, without it feeling punitive.
Ask for their summer calendar, share yours
Summer is where well-planned projects go quiet. Key stakeholders take holiday, feedback cycles stretch from three days to two weeks, and launch dates drift.
You cannot plan around information you don’t have. Ask your client for their PTO calendar upfront and share yours in return. If you know their team is mostly out in August, build that into the milestone plan now. Add buffer to any deadline that falls in that window.
Creative agency billable utilization fell from 70% to 62% in 2025 (Function Point, 2025). Capacity is tighter than it looks. A clear summer calendar, agreed in May, is how you protect both sides.
H2 client kickoff checklist
Use this before any H2 project kicks off.
- H2 conversation initiated with key and target clients (before June)
- Brief reviewed with client before work begins (right questions asked, gaps filled)
- Onboarding package sent: brand assets, voice guide, stakeholder map, communication plan
- Revision structure agreed in writing: number of rounds, consolidation owner, scope trigger
- Summer PTO calendars exchanged
- Approval owner named: one person, not a committee
- Launch date locked in writing
The clients who are easy to work with
The most well-run H2 projects don’t start with a great brief. They start with a creative partner who made the first move.
The clients who are easiest to work with in October are the ones you onboarded properly in June. That relationship investment, done in May before the scramble starts, is what separates a project that runs well from one that just finishes.
Before you start outreach, it’s worth knowing who’s actually worth bringing into your H2 pipeline: how to vet clients before you say yes.