You are sitting in front of your buyer and getting pressed for a solution on the spot. It is the first meeting and you want to shine. You have the expertise, you recognise the problem, and you feel the urge to prove that their decision to talk to you was the right one. So you answer.
I have done this more times than I care to admit, and almost every time I should have kept my mouth shut. The reasons are straightforward.
I only had surface-level information. During the project I would uncover details that were never mentioned in that room. Sometimes the buyer’s own organisation had already tried that solution and it had failed. I did not have the full picture of the internal politics, which exist in every organisation without exception. I had not uncovered the emotional needs driving the request, which are rarely what they appear to be. And in the cases where my initial assessment actually was correct, I was thanked, put on hold, and watched the company either do it themselves or find someone cheaper to execute exactly what I had just handed them for free.
Giving away the answer in the first meeting costs you in every direction. So how do you turn it around?
