Client briefs: Are you asking smart questions?

Delivering for a new client is of paramount importance. Yet many struggle to do this because at the outset, they fail to obtain the right information about their client’s needs. Are you asking smart questions in your client briefs?

Your decisions are only as good as the information you work with. To increase the quality of this information, you need to ask relevant questions to the right people at the right times in the right way.

This article provides some starter tips on how to ask smart questions in client briefs, and is continued next month.

Get high quality information from the start

Don’t blame clients for not giving you the right information. Getting high quality information is like fishing; fish don’t just come to you, you need to bait, hook and pull them in.

The information you need from clients to make smart decisions won’t just flow to you. You must cast a line out and hook it. It’s your job as a soloist to obtain the right information by asking smart questions.

Plan your questions in advance

Your objective is to get hold of all the information you need so that you can proceed and perform at your very best for your client.

You’ll need to do this when speaking to prospects, when being briefed by clients, during and after projects.

When you get the right information, an amazing thing happens. Both you and your client get more clarity. You can usually see the end result more clearly and the steps you’ll need to take to get there. Everything feels easier. You both feel more in control of the situation, and therefore you tend to feel happier and perform better.

These feelings will resonate across to your client too. When smart questions are asked in the right way, both of you feel stronger and more certain from the outset.

So what are the smart questions?

These steps will get you started:

1. What am I trying to achieve for this client? Write this at the top of a blank page.

2. Draw 3 columns underneath: A, B and C

3. In column A, list: What decisions am I going to need to make along the way?

4. In column B, list: What facts will I need to know in order to make these decisions? There’s likely to be many.

5. In column C, list: What questions must I ask to obtain these facts?

You can then take each fact, and find out what question it’s ‘married’ to.

This planning should help to increase your clarity. Most people don’t give this any consideration and then wonder why they come unstuck.

But this alone isn’t enough! You can’t just fire off your list of questions to your client. You need to gauge who to ask, when and how to cast your questions out correctly. Get these wrong and the whole process can flop.

We’ll look at how to avoid that in my follow up article on asking smart questions.

Have you struggled on a job because you didn’t ask smart questions find out enough information at the start? Or have you faced frustrations in client briefs when gathering information?

If you have any stories or comments please share them below.

Mark Moore is the Director of Excelerated Performance International. He helps people to close the skills and knowledge gaps that they face, much faster, and manage themselves more effectively in order to achieve their business goals.

7 comments | Add your own

Unfortunately I have just paid a lot of money, and not received what I wanted. I provided a lot of information related to what I wanted, but it seems there were ‘technical specifications’ I was unaware of. If the supplier (‘the specialist’) had asked me these questions, I could have stopped and sourced the answer. Instead they did not, and I am out of pocket with something that does not suit my requirements. Heather Smith from BRISBANE | Read my articles
Hi Mark - brilliant advice, but could I add something else? Get the client to sign it!! It won't help avoid issues in many cases, but at least there's no argument that you have done 'the right thing'. Grant Hyman from Sydney | Read my articles
The first thing I ask clients is, 'what is the end result - where is this project going to be ... print, web, magazine etc.?' Then I check out the technical specifications and advise the client BEFORE I commence anything. Every project is unique, so I always check the end use first, including deadlines and work backwards. Also, if I consider I am not the right person for that particular project, then I refer the client on, or at least advise them of what might be best for them. Karen Curran from Springwood
Mark - I love this article - you are right that it's very important to take a good brief. It's also worth noting that sometimes your client's needs and wants might change along the way, so making suggestions about evolving changes can also be a good idea. Lissanne Oliver from Fairfield | Read my articles
In creating a website and graphic design we often ask the questions and put forward the issues that may arise. Most instances the client has not thought about or even identified the problems. We then ask them to spend the time to create a plan so they know where they are heading so they can make the critical decisions based of factual information and options. At the final spec before we proceed we get the client to sign and approve. Clients must get their business model right first as we know the product will deliver. We try our best to advise and educate however, at the end of the day we follow the spec as outlined by the client but ensure the solution allows for future customisation and evolution. Peter Atkins - Telligence... Delivering Smarter Online Solutions. (Design, Development and Hosting) from Newcastle, NSW
Great article Mark, as a business owner as well as a consumer I find it really important to ask and be asked smart questions before engagement. Simply, we have a checklist of questions that we ask during our first interview, this also gives us a good idea as to whether the prospective client is someone who suits our profile, so we don't begin working with someone who is chalk when we are cheese! We then ask these questions again down the track so that we can see what has changed for the client so that we adapt our service to meet their evolving needs. Andrea McKenna from Melbourne
I find your article great! I know how important is to ask the right question, most clients look puzzled answering them, nobody ever bothered asking those questions before. By asking the right questions I discover a lot about their business, make them aware of the possibilities are available to them. It makes my clients happy and they recommend my business to others.
Again, as everything else it starts with planning. Before I meet a client, I make sure that I find out everything possible about their business, industry etc. I go prepared.
This is another way to build customer relations. Judit Nagy from Sydney

7 comments | Add your own

Add Your comments

Preview comment

Name

Website *

Town / city and country

Email (never sold, displayed or given away)

* This will link your name to your site. So please avoid self promotion elsewhere! We delete spam, disrespectful or off-topic comments.