Advice on design-related expert calls & client meetings
This story was originally written up for internal company purposes. I wanted to offer advice to members of the Netguru product design team who might want to engage in pre-sales activities, having no previous experience in the area. Nonetheless, the takeaways are pretty universal. I hope they help you in your day-to-day work, since starting and maintaining good relationships with clients is key, no matter if you’re at an agency or freelancing.
Adventure time
When it comes to expert calls, you can think of the entirety of your life experience as preparation. You’re the expert in your field and for any potential client to believe it you must believe it first. Only when you yourself realize the value of your knowledge, will the expert calls (or any client calls for that matter) become easy. After all, no matter how scary a call might draw itself out to be in your head, it’s always just a conversation. Taking part in such meetings and having the opportunity to advise others on matters of huge importance will give you a major confidence boost!
Think of an expert call as you would of any other conversation, but do come prepared. Invest the necessary time into familiarizing yourself with whatever data (related to the challenge at hand) is available.
Don’t wait forever for that “aha!” moment of Oh wait, I DO know what I’m talking about because it might never come if you don’t jump head-first into deep water. Join in on pre-sales calls as a spectator first if you get the chance and find out what types of questions are usually being asked. Remember, the more valuable information you get from your interlocutor(s) about their idea or existing product, the easier it will be to prepare a solid estimate of time and money needed for the work that’s to come.
If you’ve been invited to help with an expert call, chances are there’s already a channel on Slack where you’ll find most if not all the information you might need. Schedule a quick call with whoever brought the prospect in. They might have tips about the stakeholder(s) that you won’t find in the channel materials or anywhere else. Even if it’s just a brief intro describing the overall demeanor of your future interlocutor, you’ll have a better understanding of what to expect.
Just so you know, prospective clients are like wolfs, they sense your fear. Nah, just kidding. Whatever you think is giving your nervousness away is probably unnoticeable to anyone but yourself. So simply chill and — offering your undivided attention — strive to make the conversation as natural and pleasant as possible. Remember things as simple as kindness and enthusiasm always go a long way.
Your first “expert call”
Ask a lot of questions. And I mean like A LOT-A LOT. Don’t talk over your interlocutor though and let them do approximately 80% of the talking. You focus on listening and asking relevant questions. Let them describe their pain points, frustrations, short- or long-term hopes and aims. Try to manage their expectations right away as to what we can offer as a company in a given timeframe and within the budget they want to invest — provided they’ve already disclosed it. Don’t forget, the ideal way forward is to offer them help through aligning our goals.
One thing popped into my head just now. Experts in any field who overuse the word obviously or even the phrase of course — often when explaining complex concepts to more or less technical interlocutors — almost always make me want to roll my eyes at them.
“Of course, it will take at least two weeks to integrate the notifications into the app in both iOS and Android. We’re going to use X and Y to do it, obviously.”
Which part of that exactly would be obvious to someone who — in our case — is neither a designer nor a developer? My advice is to use obviously carefully, in moderation; that way we won’t come off as arrogant know-it-alls.
Ok, the call is over and 3/4 of my post-its are drawings, now what?
Well, on the bright side, you’ve made art. Those pieces may turn out to cost your company some serious dough if the opportunity is lost, but hey, who says that pink post-it duck isn’t worth it.
F̶o̶r̶e̶v̶e̶r Never alone
In all seriousness, either record the conversation for your own comfort (remember, you’re obliged to ask interlocutors for consent) or agree with your teammates that the person who isn’t talking at a given moment is taking notes. You are never alone on such calls, people from other divisions join in as well — guys from business development, account management or customer success are always there to support you. Depending on prospective clients’ needs, more people — with areas of expertise different from yours — may be present as well; everyone simply asks and answers questions related to their disciplines.
Preparing a time and cost estimate
Estimating how much time it will take to finish a project can appear hard, so what you always want to do is break it — however big it might be — into smaller chunks. I recommend doing it in a spreadsheet, so at all times you can clearly see all tasks that need to be done. Afterwards it’s good to assign those tasks to phases like for example: research, product review, competitors’ analysis, moodboarding, defining overall aesthetic direction, initial design explorations, defining flows and mocking up wireframes, prototyping, testing, UI, handoff to developers, and so on, you get the gist.
This greatly facilitates the — often mundane — challenge of assessing the time needed for completing each task and assures relative accuracy of the entire estimate. When the document is ready, you may be asked to present it to the not-yet-client on another call. Other specialists join in as well and go through their respective parts. We explain the reasoning behind why we group certain tasks the way we group them and why we think it will take this or that amount of time to complete them.
A good approach is to give every little piece of work an optimistic and pessimistic value in the man-days column in your spreadsheet. Deciding what values to put in usually just comes down to experience and recalling similar tasks from past engagements. Assess each task separately, taking into consideration everything you know about the project, and type in how many man-days it could take to complete them.
Don’t settle for cans of beans
When in doubt, don’t hesitate to ask someone more seasoned to take a look at your guesstimate. Their one glance and a word of advice or reassurance could give you a priceless morale upsurge before the presentation that’s to come.
When you’re done preparing the document, send it over to all teammates involved (post it in the channel). It’s usually an account manager’s job to convert your man-day values into an actual cost estimate, so no need to worry about that. Other members in the channel will surely also benefit from having access to your work before another client meeting and they might provide you with valuable last-minute feedback.
During the presentation call it’s crucial you educate the prospect(s) about how we work (our process, tools, usual workflow) and about all possible risks or constraints that came to your mind as you were preparing the estimate. Remember, not all conversation partners will be very substantive and not all of them will be nice, so just strive to be patient and keep your composure. With time, these conversations only become easier and easier.
Summary:
Undivided attention, asking questions, listening, taking notes if necessary, speaking confidently, being diligent, staying enthusiastic and kind. There, you’re all set. In the words of an icon: Good luck and don’t f**k it up!
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A big thank you to my colleagues at Netguru, especially Nataliia Larina, Piotr Śliwa, Dawid Woźniak, Adam Romański, Damian Chmiel, and Tomasz Marszał.
