The instinct in a first meeting is to explain what you do. Years of experience, list of services, a folder of past work.
The meetings that turn into orders usually look the opposite. The customer talks for most of it.
Why the pitch fails
Because you are answering a question nobody asked. The customer is not trying to find out what you can do in general. They are trying to find out whether you understand their specific problem.
You cannot demonstrate that until you know what it is.
Six questions that do the work
- What made you look for this now? The timing tells you whether this is urgent or exploratory.
- How are you handling it today? Reveals the real competitor, which is often "nothing" or "an existing staff member".
- What has been tried before? Saves you proposing something that already failed here.
- Who else is involved in deciding? Asked politely, early, before you have invested three meetings in the wrong person.
- What does this need to achieve for you to be happy? This becomes your scope, in their words.
- What would stop this going ahead? The most useful question and the one nobody asks. People will tell you.
Then say very little
When you do talk, answer the problem they described, not the full list of what you offer. Two relevant sentences beat a ten-minute overview.
Write it down the same day
Not from memory, and not next week. Their words, in the record, against their name. It is what makes the quotation sound like it was written for them, and it is the difference between a follow-up that lands and one that reads as generic.
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