How to prepare for your first end-client meeting. Part 1; Before the meeting

Great news, you’ve been shortlisted to be part of a Stellarmann team delivering a solution for an end-client. If you’ve been invited to meet the client, they will want reassurance that you have the right skills for the project, to understand the nature of your relevant experience and to check how you will work successfully with the internal stakeholders.

Read on for useful pointers on preparing for your meeting and how to make a strong first impression.

1. Gain insight into their business

Whether you’ve heard of the end-client before or not, read up on what they do and where they see opportunities for growth that you can contribute to.

ChatGPT, Gemini or other AI tools can be a big timesaver here. Use a prompt to get the basics on their products and services, plus the trends that are affecting them and recent announcements on strategic direction, technology investments or financial performance.

If you’ve read the page of their website about culture and values, you’ll be able to use some of that language in your meeting and show where your own values match up.

Don’t hesitate to look up the person you’re meeting on LinkedIn. If they clock that you’ve viewed their profile, it’s a positive to show that you’re proactively researching and preparing.

2. Understand the deliverables

Take time to understand what success looks like for the delivery team or change function you’d be working within. How will it be measured? Think about equivalent situations where you’ve delivered similar results.

Ask questions about the hierarchy, and how different functions interact with each other. Consider the scope of work you’d be involved in, for instance the team size and budget, and prepare examples from previous roles in your career that show this is in your comfort zone.

Consider the technical knowledge needed for the project, and how you can demonstrate your depth of expertise. One idea is to highlight weaknesses or difficulties you’ve spotted in certain platforms or software, and how you overcame them.

3. Rehearse your answers

We recommend using the STAR method to prepare answers for the questions you’re most likely to be asked to demonstrate your competency or how you’d approach certain scenarios.

S: Situation – What was the context of the example (when, where, who) or what was the problem you were trying to solve?

T: Task – What was your objective within this example? What outcome or future state were you trying to achieve?

A: Action - What did you do? Remember to answer this in relation to your own efforts, not those of a team. Say ‘I designed the enterprise architecture’ rather than ‘We developed the enterprise architecture.’

R: Result – Here’s your chance to sell yourself. What was the result, what did you learn and what would you do differently with the benefit of hindsight?

It helps to practice your answers by saying them out loud, not just repeating them in your head. This helps you untangle complicated sentences, and get slicker the more you do it.

4. What do you want to know?

This meeting is your opportunity to seek clarification on any aspects of the project that you’re not sure about.

Questions about the role – what are the KPIs, how quickly do you expect to see results etc.

Questions about the team – are any skills missing in the team, how cohesive are they, is there any context you should be aware of?

Questions about the key stakeholders – what are they expecting to see, what do they feel passionately about?

Questions about the company – what priority does the organisation place on digital transformations and new technologies? Is their driving force around better customer service, commercial opportunities or efficient processes?

We hope that working through your meeting preparation in this format will boost your confidence and allow you to give the best account of yourself with the end-client. You may also want to read our tips for the day itself including preparing for video or face-to-face meetings.