OK, you’ve been invited to see a new client and you’re heading to their offices. There are just 3 questions you need answered in order for you to know what is needed and valued. You’ll have to ‘dress them up’ a little to avoid appearing too blunt but without the answers you might miss the point.
We’re supposed to refer to them as ‘issues’ nowadays but you’re at the client because they have a problem.
Question 1: “What exactly is your problem?”
Once you have the problem clearly articulated it’s time for the most important question. Lets face it, this is a large organisation with many people running around.
Question 2: “Why can’t you sort it out yourself”?
You could be committing a significant amount of time and energy to this client and the last thing you need is for disgruntled staff to obstruct your progress. There must be a reason that they have canvassed for external support and you need to understand why. If it is just a shortage of time that’s the issue, fine. If it’s a capability issue you’ll need to dig a little more to make sure you’ll get the support you need.
Last but not least…
Question 3: “What’s the budget”?
You now have the scale of the problem and the support you will (or won’t) have available. You will know what you need to make the project attractive and it will be now that you can confirm the importance to your client.
Easy as 1-2-3
Next time we’ll discuss the different types of questions you need to ask a client