Convert a "Possible" Client to a "Definite": Give People a Place to Start

My daughter stumbled upon an amazing opportunity this week.

She's a senior in college majoring in audio engineering and was connected with a "major player" in the country music industry. She was told the woman was looking for a staff engineer.

When my daughter got to her studio, she found out that the woman - whose primary background is in publicity, not the recording side - had created an amazing studio space...but she didn't really know how to use it.

"I put this together during Covid," she told my daughter. "People just come in and record, but it's not very organized."

During their meeting, the woman was thrilled when my daughter said she likely had a prime opportunity to make some money back by renting the space out to artists looking to record. But at the conclusion of the meeting, the woman seemed too overwhelmed to really move forward.

After talking to my daughter about this interaction, I called her back and said, "You should come up with a plan for her."

We all have tasks we need to do and we don't know how to get them done. Often what is needed is for someone to just say, "Here's where we're going to start. Here's phase two. Here's where we should be in a year."

We just need that first step laid out for us.

If you find yourself on the phone with a potential client and you can tell they're starting to get overwhelmed, back it down.

Give them the first step, whether that's gathering a list of documents or completing some onboarding tasks that you have.
Tell them what that next meeting will look like or what the next month of two of service will entail.
Above all, reassure them that you have a plan in place and that you will be their guide. What they're really looking for when employing you is the knowledge that they're no longer alone and you are the person who gets things done.