Introduction
- Technical projects require research and proper planning
- When you’re working with clients, or unique needs of internal teams (which are kind of like clients at the end of the day), you’ll need to figure out a plan of attack to help them with their needs/wants
- This episode dives into:
- Technical research
- Presentation planning and skills
- Tailoring experiencing based on who the client is
- The importance of salesmanship
Listening to the Client’s Needs | Meeting and Discovery
- An initial meeting with the client
- Have them explain their needs and wants
- Get as many details as possible
- If you're unsure on anything they've described to you make sure to get them to explain themselves
- Technical conversations can begin here, but what you are really trying to get at is what they need/want in plain English (or other language) so that you can take the information and figure out a plan outside of the meeting
- In addition, you should want to try and get a feel for how urgent their needs are, and if they have a specific deadline that they need to meet
- Communication should be normalized in this phase
- You should figure out what the client expects from you in terms of communication
- For example they may prefer email over phone calls
- If they have a rough idea or if you have a rough idea of how you would like to communicate. For example, in specific milestones, or maybe once per month. This would be a good time to establish a rough communication schedule
- I do recommend that you do not set up a strict calendar for communication at this point. Until the solution is decided on based on your research
Going Back to the Drawing Board | Research Time
- This phase should be done almost entirely in private, meaning just you and or colleagues working on the research - you do not want client interference at this phase
- What I like to do is jot down everything including links and information that's relevant to the solution of the problem, all these notes will be rough and just for you and/or your team
- I like to jot down a few potential solutions if there are multiple available
- After finishing this rough research paper, I like to take a day or two off from the project in order to sort of clear my head and then I will approach it again. Read through my research and begin working on a more formal plan.
- It's important to know that you may need to prepare rough notes for multiple solutions if the client requested multiple potential solutions or you think that multiple solutions are viable
- Once the rough notes are complete , I begin making a more formal document that presents a solution(s) that I think will work
- This document can take several different forms:
- Formal notes for me, to guide me through a presentation
- A formal document to send it to the client (if requested)
- Combination of the two
- Once this more formal document is complete. I contact the client asking for a follow-up meeting where we can discuss either the document. I sent them , or we can do the presentation that I promised them
Presenting the Plan to Different Types of Clients
- How you present your plan is important to the client’s understanding of what needs to be done and how it will be done.
- Presenting to tech-savvy clients
- When a client is more tech-savvy I’ll try and involve them more in the conversation to make the dialog more natural - instead of me just talking at them
- I’ll bring in some technical conversations (complexity depending on their understanding level) and even bounce some light ideas off of them during for some interactivity (ie We can make these manually written posts, or we can hook this up to your RSS feed that you’re using for your mobile app data - not sure if that would be available for the website from a tech perspective?)
- Presenting to non-tech-savvy clients
- More of a formal presentation that covers up as much technical jargon and topics as possible
- This type of meeting requires a bit more prep (at least for me) because they’ll likely ask questions that may be out-of-scope for what would be considered standard (they don’t know what the technical scope is)
- Above all I try and present the plan(s) as complete solutions that I’m confident in - many clients will be anxious about making technical decisions when it’s such a question mark for them
Balancing Tech and Sales | The Sales Mindset
- While nailing the presentation is critical for client understanding - there is also another critical component happening, salesmanship
- Even if you aren’t customer facing, salesmanship can help even with internal office struggles, where you may need to convince management to move in a particular direction, or to allocate funding for a reason you think is good.
- Nitty Gritty Trap
- When you’re presenting a plan it’s easy to get bogged down in the nitty gritty details and problems that may arise during the process
- While acknowledging details is important, it can hurt the client’s confidence when you present a solution
- If the client hears your plan that has 5 concerns in it, how confident are they that you’ll be the one to handle it?
- I get stuck in this trap quite often (presenting too many concerns) and to get out of this habit, I’ve had success by presenting solutions - only bringing up big concerns, but assuring clients (especially if they’re not tech-savvy) that I’ll be able to solve the problem
- All-In-One Solution
- Most clients want an all-in-one solution that reassures them their wants/needs will be covered and that you’re the person for the job
- If your clients needs are complex, you may need to break down the solution into phases so that you can control the plan - guiding them through manageable chunks that prioritize their most pertinent needs, while not overwhelming them with information (and you with work)
- An exception would be if you’re working with people that are technical (ie your client runs a tech firm, or has an internal tech team that you’ll be assisting) - these type of situations will typically demand that you have very details tech conversations including about tech issues
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