A new client has expressed interest in speaking to you about their project.
Congratulations 🎉
There’s always a wonderful thrill when you first encounter a new client. You’ve got the chance to show them what you can do and wow them with your skills and professionalism.
There’s a lot riding on that initial client meeting. As humans, we make huge, important decisions based on first impressions. You only get this one chance to sell yourself and your company, and there’s a lot of pressure not to mess things up.
Luckily, we’ve put together this guide to help you crush that first client meeting. Here’s what you do:
It’s always useful to have a bit of empirical data, especially when you’re overhauling a vital part of your sales process.
Before you start changing up your initial client meetings, analyse your current system and look at what’s working / not working. If possible, record a selection of meetings – with both closed and unclosed clients – and note down the questions asked, the techniques employed, and anything else that plays in to the success or failure of the meeting.
For example, you might notice the following things impacting the success of client meetings:
If possible, you can survey current and past clients and non-converting leads to find out what they believed worked and didn’t work in their initial meetings.
Enter your initial meeting armed with information about the client. You can research them by:
This information will help you to:
Create a simple brochure or guide – a few pages about your company, services, testimonials, general procedures, payment guidelines, and an agenda/checklist for the meeting or onboarding process. You can send this document to the client ahead of the meeting so they have time to read over it and formulate questions.
This welcome pack serves two purposes:
After your meeting you can attach the brochure to your proposal with Practice Ignition. It gives you another opportunity to make the sale post-meeting.
This is a unique idea that works wonders, courtesy of the team at Creative Boom. They recommend during the initial meeting you offer the clients something small they can do themselves for free to help their business.
This might be a simple piece of advice as you go through their materials, or it might be a free piece of content you email them before or following the meeting. This is a clever way to build rapport and trust, while demonstrating your confidence and expertise.
Instead of launching into a pitch about who you are and what you do, get the client talking about their company. Find out as much as you can about what makes them unique, their position in the market, their strategic goals, their problems or pain points, and the reason they’ve ended up sitting across from you.
During this time, you can take notes and ask questions to dig deeper into the client’s world. You are coaxing out vital information to help you create the best solution for this client, and you’re also demonstrating your communication and listening skills.
Now that you know exactly what’s keeping the client up at night, you can directly address how your company can help solve those pain points.
At this stage it’s really useful if you can use a case study to demonstrate how you’ve eliminated a similar problem for another client. Feel free to include a case study in the Practice Ignition proposal as well.
Use facts, statistics, graphs, images, and videos where possible – clients love to see the tangible results of your work.
If you did the initial work to analyse your current meetings, you probably have a good list of the most common questions clients ask during initial meetings. You can incorporate answers to these into your typical meeting format, or address them in your welcome pack. This gives the client the feeling that you’ve anticipated all their needs.
Common questions might include:
You should always present clients with a friendly, professional image whenever they walk in the door. This extends to your clothes and personal grooming. You want your client to leave the meeting feeling they made the right decision hiring you and that their project is in capable hands.
For this reason, it’s equally important to wear clothes that make your feel comfortable and confident. When you feel good in your own skin, you exude self-assurance and your clients respond to that. Don’t wear a suit if you aren’t comfortable in one. Learn more about the science behind making a lasting first impression on Science of People.
Here are a few tips from psychology to help you master any meeting:
Andrew Grant famously said, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Your initial client meeting is your chance to demonstrate your skills and value, so you don’t want to blow it.
Your clients are used to people trying to sell them things they don’t want/need. They have a pretty well-honed bullshit meter and can spot a disingenuous salesperson a mile off. If you want to avoid triggering their DO NOT ENGAGE function, then skip the following:
Congrats, you’ve made it through a client meeting and it went well! You deserve a nice piece of chocolate.
Just a piece, mind. Don’t take the whole block. Your work isn’t finished yet. You still need to follow-up with the client.
The first thing to note is to be aware of your behaviour immediately after the initial meeting closes, especially if it’s on the client’s premises. Push your chair in, tidy your cup away, make some small talk (complimenting the office space or location is usually a great start), and collect all your things. Stay off your phone until you’re back in your vehicle.
How you approach follow-ups will depend on your industry and client expectations. It’s always a good idea to send through an email which includes your welcome pack/brochure included in a Practice Ignition proposal. You may also like to send a calendar invite for a follow-up meeting or call. This sets the expectation that you’ll be talking again and shows the client how much you value clear communication.
If you don’t hear from the client after 1-2 weeks, you can follow-up again with an email or phone call. If possible, make a call – you get a better shot at a conversation if you can catch someone on the phone.
The rules for following up are the same for the initial meeting – be genuine, professional, and establish rapport.
In your initial meeting, you set expectations in the client’s mind that remain throughout your entire engagement. If you establish the right expectations from the onset, you set yourself up to become an indispensable resource.
What tips and techniques are you using to rock your client meetings?