Top Five Questions for Prospective Project Clients

You’ve made contact with a potential project client who has a need and thinks they might want your services.  That’s the easy part.  Now you’re ready to sit down with the potential project client and get details on what it is they think they need.  Here is a discussion of five key questions that I have found need to be addressed at the beginning of any potential consulting engagement.

Is there a budget in place for this activity?

It’s important to ask this question early.  I’ve wasted too much time in the past with potential project clients who’ve asked me in to discuss ‘championing’ (is that even a real word?) projects for them only to find out that they’ve yet to get any cooperation from their CFO or necessary superior.  I’ve met as many as three times with one of these types only to end up with nothing to show for it.

So, my tune has changed.  It’s the first question I used to ask when I was running internal IT projects for Rockwell Collins and it’s now definitely a question I ask near the beginning of every meeting with a potential project client.  It’s not necessary to know how much they can spend.  But it is necessary to know that they can spend something.

Do you have a timeframe within which this needs to be completed?

If there have been some corporate promises made, then you need to know about them.  I once led an effort to create an interactive website for a pharmacy.  What they didn’t tell me at the beginning – and what I failed to ask – was “is there a drop-dead date on this activity?”  There was, and it was as unmovable as the Rock of Gibraltar.  To top it off, they forgot to tell me that the drug database they were using was from a third-party who had originally hoped to create the interactive site.  Needless to say, they were less than excited about cooperating with me and the team I had assembled for the effort.  It took my best negotiating skills to get them to cooperate, and the site was completed on time and used extensively for the next 10 years.  This incident taught me a valuable lesson and I’m more careful in several of the questions I ask – including the specific timeframe needs of the project client.  These timeframes are things you need to know about and will eventually be the framework for what you build into your project software and collaborate with your team on using a tool like Seavus’ Project Viewer.

What is the single biggest problem you’re facing that has led to us sitting here?

There’s always one big need that the customer is aware of that has caused them to seek out your service.  Beyond that there are also one or more ‘elephant in the room’ type situations that you have to dig for and find out about.  You ask the right questions to find the customer-perceived problem, and then you ask more questions to see if that problem is really only a symptom of the real problem or problems that need addressed.

If you address only the customer-perceived problem and fix that, you’ll make them happy for the short-term.  If you dig and find the real problem, you will really win them over, the consulting engagement will be a longer one, and you will realize higher revenue from it overall.

What feedback are you getting from your end users?

The end users of either the current process that you’re going to be working on or the end users of the potential new process you’ll be implementing need to be included.  Make sure your customer hasn’t come to you without first discussing the situation with their end users.  If he hasn’t, that will become your job, but you need to know this up front because it will affect your estimate and it will affect how you address these individuals going in.  With no advanced warning you may be basically ‘cold calling’ them and if a new process affects – or eliminates – their jobs, then you may have a mutiny on your hands.  It’s just very helpful to know what you’re walking in to.

Have you discussed the problem in detail with all subject matter experts in your organization?

The last thing you want is to be coming in and immediately stepping on toes.  That can lead to push back, dead ends, and just an overall major lack of cooperation.  You need to make sure that this isn’t a project thought up in the head of the project client sponsor with no consideration given to those ‘experts’ in the organization who may be able to either shed light on the issue or may have their own potential solution to the problem.

Related posts:

1. Walking into a Trainwreck – Part 1
2. Is Your Customer a Help or a Hindrance
3. Managing Your Client’s Expectations
4. Managing Client Expectations
5. Closing the Project Deal – Part 1 – Assessing the Need