The First Client Meeting Questions You Should Always Ask

If you’ve spent any time in the tech world, you know that the best and most lucrative gigs are the ones you make for yourself. There are tons of fantastic tech jobs for the taking out there, but the big bucks go to business owners. To succeed in your tech business endeavors, though, you need to know which first client meeting questions will open doors and land you the top contracts. Knowing which questions to ask clients in first meetings is a skill that will help your company start bringing in profits.

That’s why we put together this guide. We’ve assembled some questions that you should put to any new potential client to get a good idea of what they want and how you can help them get it. In this article, we give some questions to ask to establish baseline client information, and you’ll also get some tips on what to ask to nail down specifics about the customer’s needs. Before you know it, you’ll be landing the top gigs and eating dollar bills for breakfast.*

Ask Some Baseline Questions

When you first encounter someone, you want to get the basic facts down before moving on to more detailed and specific info, right? You need to know the person’s name and what languages they speak before you learn about their hobbies and hopes, after all. Meeting your prospective clients in your new tech career for the first time should be no different. To get yourself into a position to do business with a person or company, you need to know fundamental facts about your client’s goals.

Ask what the client’s company objective/mission might be, for a start. You should also get some info about the company’s target market and the services and products that they offer to that market. You need to get a good idea of the client’s business intelligence, so find out what they know about their competitors. Ask questions to find out what the client offers that their competitors don’t provide.

Get Detailed Information on the Client’s Needs

As a freelancer or new tech business owner, you need to know as many specifics about your prospective clients’ needs. Being up-to-date and fully briefed on your customer’s wants will help you provide the sort of feedback they want to get. When you have detailed facts about your client’s desires and hopes, you have a much better chance at shaping an offer that they like and landing the top jobs.

Start with large, short-term goals. Find out what the client company’s goals are for the next quarter and year. Then, move into the nitty gritty: how’s the company funded, if it’s a startup? Get some notion of the allotted budget for the work they want done, and take the time to learn as much as possible about what they hope that work to achieve. The more you find out, the better you can bring your own expertise and assets to bear and put together a proposal and attitude your clients will love.

And that’s how it goes down, beautiful people. Starting your own tech business can be a fantastic career move and net you wealth and respect. But, you need to know how to work with prospective clients to get the best gigs. Our guide shows you the first client meeting questions that you should ask to set yourself up for long-term business success.