The design decisions have been finalized, and it’s time to bring your vision to life—here’s how to ensure this phase is smooth sailing for you and your clients.

If signing a new client is like dating, the project management phase can be like a marriage. Once you’ve decided that you’re a good match and have built a solid foundation, you move on to rockier terrain, one littered with conversations about everything from a client’s feelings to their finances. “In the design phase, you’re just enamored with each other and happy to be working together, and then the budget proposal drops and it’s a reality check that shifts the relationship into a new gear,” says Meredith Heron, a designer based in Toronto. “Once the real work starts and we’re sitting together with a contractor talking about money, it changes your role.” How you navigate that change can make the difference between a one-time gig and a long-term working relationship.

In order to nail the execution phase, designers must fine-tune their internal processes while also managing their client’s idiosyncrasies. And developing trust and goodwill early on can help you to handle a crisis down the line. Heron once had a client melt down when a contractor informed her that he couldn’t finish her recently demolished kitchen until after the holidays. “She ran out of the room crying,” the designer remembers. “I knew it was important to her that she host Christmas for her family every year, and the idea that she wouldn’t be able to was really upsetting.”