Templates & Examples
An HR consultant lead magnet: the new-manager checklist.
A section-by-section walk-through of one illustrative new-manager first-week checklist, then the two fields you swap to reuse the same skeleton for another consulting niche.
You are launching a new service this month and you need a lead magnet to go with it. You have opened four template packs, and every one of them is aimed at a generic small business owner or a wellness coach: caption prompts, a 30-day reset, a morning routine. Nothing is written for the HR consultant whose week includes a nine-person accountancy firm promoting its first team leader.
So the choice looks like this. Adapt something that does not fit and hope nobody notices, or build the file yourself in the evenings after client calls. Both are slow. The second brings the other worry: that the finished PDF looks off-brand next to your proposals, or that it mostly attracts people who download everything and buy nothing.
This page does one job properly. It walks through an illustrative HR consultant's new-manager first-week checklist, section by section, showing what belongs in each part and what to cut. Then it shows the two fields you change to reuse the same skeleton for a different consulting niche, so the structure is settled once. The consultant, the firm, the manager and every detail below are fictional.
Build your brief as you read.
Use the free 25-page fillable Lead Magnet Brief Builder: 19 lettered worksheets from finding an idea to a one-page brief, a draft skeleton and a launch plan, with three fictional worked examples.
Free: we send you a short email first. Reply VERIFY to it and we email you the workbook, then five short follow-up emails over 12 days (one names our own $79 Workflow Pack), then at most one email a week, when we publish a new guide. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
Start with the reader's Monday, not with your services.
A checklist that lists your services is a brochure; a checklist that helps one person get through a specific week is a lead magnet. Before you write a heading, decide who opens the file and what they finish with it.
In the example, the reader is the operations director of a 20-person professional services firm. Last week she promoted a senior technician to team leader. He starts on Monday, and nobody has written down what she should hand over, who he should meet, or what going well looks like by Friday.
“After using this checklist, the reader has a written first-week plan for a new manager: who he meets, what he reads, the decisions he owns and the one question he brings back on Friday.”
That sentence is the test for every section below. If a section does not move the reader towards it, it belongs in a different file. Worksheet D in the free Lead Magnet Brief Builder is the same test on paper: a completion statement and a short promise drill, so the file is aimed before it is written.
The new-manager first-week checklist, section by section.
Six sections, four to six pages, one sitting to work through. The shape is deliberately plain; the value is in what each section asks the reader to write down.
1. Cover and the one promise.
Title, one line naming who it is for, one line naming what they finish, your name and a version date. Nothing else. A paragraph about your firm's history here is the reason people close the file.
2. What the new manager needs before Monday.
A handover list with answer lines: the team's names and roles, the two priorities for the quarter, the decisions currently waiting, where the files live, and who answers which question. This is the section the reader fills in from the client's own material, and it is why they keep the file.
3. Three conversations in the first two days.
One with the person who did the job before, one with each team member, one with the manager's own boss. For each conversation: what to ask, what to listen for, what to write down within the hour. Three questions per conversation is plenty; ten turns it into homework.
4. The five-day plan grid.
One row per day with four columns: the single outcome for the day, the meeting that has to happen, the thing to finish, and the question to bring back. This is the part that makes the file a plan rather than a reading list.
5. What the manager decides alone, and what comes to you.
Three short lists: decide alone this week, bring to me, send to HR or an adviser. This is where your judgement shows, and where you handle the awkward part — people questions from a first-time manager — without giving advice you are not qualified to give.
6. One next step.
In the example, the reader can book a paid 60-minute review of the completed plan before the manager's second week. One step, named, with what it covers and what it costs. Not a list of six ways to work with you.
That is the whole file. A reader who works through it has something to hand over on Monday, and you have shown how you think about a promotion, a handover and a boundary — three things an HR consultant is hired for.
What to leave out so the file stays credible.
The sections above are small on purpose. What usually fills the space is what makes a file feel generic:
- Leadership theory, or a model with a name. The reader is not choosing a philosophy this week; they are choosing what to do on Tuesday.
- A long introduction about your approach. Two sentences, then the first task.
- A 40-item competency framework. If it cannot be filled in by Friday, it is a reference document, not a first-week plan.
- Logos, awards, testimonial quotes or any sentence promising an outcome. A lead magnet is the wrong place for claims you would have to evidence.
- Anything that reads as legal advice on employment matters. Point the reader to their own adviser, and say plainly that you are not giving one.
Swap two fields to reuse the skeleton in another niche.
The six-section shape is not HR-specific. What makes it HR is the audience field and the outcome field. Change those two and the same skeleton carries a different consulting offer, which is how an independent consultant with two service lines avoids writing two lead magnets from scratch.
| Field | What it must name | Illustrative HR version | Illustrative operations version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audience | The role, the size of the firm and the moment this month | Operations director, 20-person professional services firm, one week before a first team leader starts | Practice manager, four-partner clinic, two weeks before the lead nurse takes a month's leave |
| Outcome | What the reader has finished when they close the file | A written first-week plan for the new manager | A one-page handover note a locum can work from |
Illustrative examples only. Both situations are fictional and neither describes a client result.
Everything else stays: the cover promise; the before-Monday list becomes what the locum needs before day one; the three conversations become three handover conversations; the five-day grid becomes a five-day cover plan; the boundary page stays; the single next step stays. What must change is the content inside each section, and that has to come from your own method. Skip it and the file reads like a template with the nouns swapped — the problem you started with.
Worksheet G in the Brief Builder chooses between a checklist, a worksheet and a mini-guide, and checklist or mini-guide? explains when the longer shape earns its pages. For a first-week plan, the checklist wins: the reader is doing, not reading.
Take the specifics from client notes you already hold.
None of this needs a new tool. The raw material is in your own files: the questions you asked in the last three onboarding calls, the stage names you use, the caveats you repeat, the two things that always go wrong. Worksheet A of the Brief Builder helps you find candidate ideas in that material, worksheet B chooses one using five tests, and worksheet F is a source and permission log, one line per source: what you may use and who approved it.
Because this topic touches people management, add one more pass. Worksheet F2 is a claim pre-check: mark every sentence that states what an employer must do, or that sounds like a legal requirement, then either rewrite it as a question for the reader's adviser or remove it. Run the draft through the free Source & Claim Review Checklist before it carries your name. Free · enter your email and reply VERIFY to the short email we send you; we email you the checklist, then five short follow-up emails over 12 days, then at most one email a week, when we publish a new guide. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
That pass is also the answer to the AI worry. A generated draft can supply a page order and first-draft wording. It cannot supply your steps, your boundary page or the phrasing your clients recognise. Keep it a draft until every line traces back to a note you wrote or a source you can cite.
Will it collect dust? Four questions before you publish.
Some files do collect dust, and nobody can promise otherwise. What you control is whether the file gives the reader something to do in the first five minutes and a reason to open it a second time. Ask four questions of the draft:
- Does page one give a task the reader can start today? Deliver it on page one applies the same test.
- Does it name one role, one firm size and one moment this month?
- Can a busy reader finish it in one sitting without opening a second document?
- Is the single next step something you can actually deliver this quarter?
On freebie seekers: a narrow file is downloaded by fewer people, and the ones who download it are closer to the problem you solve. That is a judgement about your pipeline, not a result anyone can guarantee. A checklist for a firm promoting its first team leader is easier to act on than a file for anyone who wants better leadership, and readers who act are the ones who get in touch.
If you would rather see a whole worked bundle first, the completed brief examples include three fictional campaigns, each with the brief, the lead magnet, the landing-page copy and five email drafts. If you buy a template pack instead, check what the licence allows before a client's name goes on it; what to check in lead magnet template packs lists the questions.
Questions from HR consultants planning a lead magnet.
Is a new-manager checklist a good lead magnet for an HR consultant?
It fits if you sell support around promotions, first-time managers or team structure. It names one moment, asks the reader to write something down, and shows your judgement without giving away a whole engagement. It fits badly if the service you are launching is unrelated, such as payroll administration.
I mostly work with small firms. Does that change the file?
It sharpens it. Small firms often have no internal HR function, so the reader may be an owner or an operations lead doing this for the first time. Keep the language plain, keep the boundary page, and do not assume a policy set the reader does not have. Small firms often have nobody whose job is HR, so a file written as one person helping another reads better than a policy pack.
How does the file connect to the HR consultant services I sell?
Through the last section. Name one paid next step that follows from the completed checklist and say what it covers. If your services are a monthly retainer, frame the next step as a short paid review rather than the retainer; a reader who has just finished the checklist is not ready to discuss a year of support.
Where does the HR consultant business material go, the file or my site?
The file carries one task. Your site carries the rest: how you work, who you work with, what you charge. Mixing the two produces the brochure-style checklist readers close. Keep the service description to one line on the cover and a link on the final page.
Can I build this without design software?
Yes. A word processor with a clear heading style, generous answer space and a consistent footer is enough for a first version. Design improves a file that already works; it does not fix a file with no reader and no task. If you later move the file into a design tool, check that tool's licence before you reuse its templates on a client brand.
Sources & editorial notes
- Lead Magnet Brief Builder, version 2, published at /free-starter-kit. Worksheets A, B, D, F, F2 and G are the ones referred to above.
- Source & Claim Review Checklist, version 1, published at /resources/source-review-checklist.
- Sample campaign bundles, published at /examples.
- This page quotes no vendor price, statistic, search-result claim or performance figure, and describes no product as tested. The HR scenario, the firm sizes and the completion statements are fictional illustrations, not client results. This page contains no affiliate links.
- Nothing here is legal advice. Employment questions differ by country and contract; raise them with a qualified adviser.
Examples on this page are illustrative and fictional. See our Editorial Policy, Review Methodology and Affiliate Disclosure.
Write the brief before you write the file.
The free Brief Builder puts the reader, the task and a completion statement on one page, in ten fields, before you draft a single section.
Free: we send you a short email first. Reply VERIFY to it and we email you the workbook, then five short follow-up emails over 12 days (one names our own $79 Workflow Pack), then at most one email a week, when we publish a new guide. Every email has an unsubscribe link.