How to prepare for the first meeting with a client

When we receive a request for proposal, the first thing we do is answer one fundamental question: is this even a topic for us?

Often, clients expect us to develop their product using technologies that we are not specialized in. Sometimes, the topic itself does not seem interesting from a business point of view. We then say outright that it is not a topic for us, because we know that we will not deliver the expected result and we, as well as the client, would be frustrated.

Next, we verify the client. We use tools such as Biznode to determine the financial stability of the company. This is important for us because one of the biggest problems faced by software houses is maintaining financial liquidity, for example, due to clients not paying invoices on time. However, this is a topic for a completely separate post.

With the basic client information and the belief that the project is interesting for us, we move on to the next step.

Within a maximum of 24 hours of receiving an inquiry, we call the client. The first phone conversation has two main goals.

Firstly, to get to know each other and find out who we are dealing with. A few minutes is enough to determine whether the client has a specific vision for their project or whether they require more guidance. Regardless of the outcome, we become a little closer and if the request for proposal has been sent to more than one company, the client will already begin to associate us with their project.

The second reason is to gain more knowledge and perspective about the project itself. It's always better to hear about the product idea directly from the client rather than interpreting it from a brief, which is often imprecise. It's also a great opportunity to explore the client's experience in working with software houses.

Before such a conversation, we always prepare ourselves by writing down the questions we want to ask the client during the conversation. We don't want to waste time wondering what to ask to make the right impression. A short list of questions is a great roadmap that guides us through the first, often most stressful, contact with the client.

I often start such a conversation with a question-request. I ask the client to "tell me about their idea in a human way". This is the best opening because it allows the client to speak freely and openly for a longer period of time. Of course, I first check whether it's a suitable time for them to talk, but I won't dwell on these obvious details in this text.

Sample questions we ask include:

1. What project do we have to implement?
2. What problems do we want to solve?
3. How will we know when we have achieved our goals?

We begin the conversation after the first review of the brief sent by the client. Before moving on to the proper analysis, we clear up any major doubts, such as those regarding key features or mechanisms.

Once we complete this stage, it's time to begin the actual brief analysis, which is conducted by developers in cooperation with business analysts.

Usually, the main goal of a client who sends us a request for proposal is to get an idea of the preliminary costs of project implementation. Therefore, we try our best to understand the assumptions and requirements, and then convert them into a first, very preliminary estimate. Based on this, the client can find out at what cost level we operate and decide if these are appropriate budgets for them. If they are, we move on to the heart of the matter - we arrange the first working meeting.

The goal of this meeting is to clarify the client's requirements described in the brief and based on them, prepare a final estimate.

In meetings with clients, it's important to convince a potential business partner that your company is the right one to carry out their project. Before the meeting, we hold a brief internal meeting to discuss the most important aspects of the project to ensure that we fully understand its nature.

During this stand-up meeting, we discuss the project brief and estimate (if one has been prepared). Typically, the developer who estimated the project's workload and the person responsible for client communication attend.

The most important thing during preparations is to determine the purpose of the meeting with the client. What do we really want to achieve during this visit? How will we know it wasn't a waste of time? What difficulties might we encounter? These are important questions because they allow us to avoid the disappointment of not knowing what we really wanted to achieve from the client.

Once the meeting date with the client is set, there are three things left to do.

Firstly, before the visit, we always want to know the client's expectations for the meeting and for us. This involves asking a simple question:

What do you expect from us in this meeting?

The answer we receive will tell us a lot about the other side's approach to the product they want to create and the company that will help them. And in the process, we avoid a situation where our vision of the first meeting differs from the client's.

As part of this thread, we also establish two other issues.

Who from the client's side will be at the meeting? This is important for us because we often prepare visual materials and want to hand them out to all participants. Secondly, if there are other stakeholders at the meeting, such as the marketing, IT, or CEO department, it's worth knowing and considering in the preparations for the meeting because each of these groups is approached differently.

How do we get to your headquarters as easily as possible? This is trivial, but often the company's entrance is not in the same place as shown on Google Maps, especially in more congested areas such as Warsaw. In our philosophy of action, we cannot be late for meetings, especially the first ones.

At this stage, we ask another series of questions, but there is one crucial motivation for us: meetings are important, and even more important is not wasting time. The better we prepare for the client's visit, the better its effect will be, and the client may gain the (right) impression that we will create their product with equal dedication and thoroughness.

Secondly, we ask directly if the client wants us to prepare a short presentation about us. This is usually requested, mainly because of other meeting participants who only know about the visit of some IT company. We always prepare only a few slides, through which we tell in a condensed way who we are and how we work. And although it is based on a certain template, we always personalize it for a specific client and their project.

The last thing we do before visiting a client is to prepare a meeting agenda that will guide us through its most important elements.

Usually, it includes information about the start of the meeting, company presentation, discussion of the most important project assumptions, Q&A with us, and setting milestones for further cooperation. Therefore, before the meeting, we also determine how long it will last. Being aware of the amount of time available, we divide it into the mentioned points.

The agenda is nothing extraordinary, but it allows us to maintain the initiative and step-by-step go through all the most important points.

Without it, it has happened that the meeting had to end unexpectedly for us (we were not aware of how much time we had). Or if we prepared a presentation, sometimes we forgot about it at the beginning of the visit and did it at the very end (or not at all). Therefore, the order introduced by the agenda is important because it allows us to control the entire process and have the feeling that the course of the first, sometimes the most important, meeting does not escape our control.

All these elements allow us to avoid situations in which we go to a meeting with a client and neither he nor we know exactly what to talk about and what goals we want to achieve. I admit that we have had absolutely unproductive visits that could not be translated into implementation. Fortunately, today we reduce this threat to an acceptable minimum.