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I stumbled upon this blog post and found it to be a useful checklist for preparing for sales, demos and other selling activities. I have included one set of list but there’s more at the post about the meeting, followups and sales strategy.

Build The Client Relationship

The positive Client relationship that may take an eternity to develop… can be destroyed in an instant

1. Listen: Talk 10%, listen 90%.
Clients will love you and heck, you might just learn something.

2. Know the client’s business:
Do the research and understand their products, distribution, competition and position within the market.

3. Know the client’s customer:
Understand every step and emotion their consumers go through on the path to a purchase.

4. Be their brand steward:
Be protective of what’s responsible and relevant to their brand.

5. Exceed their expectations:
Surprise them with more than they expect and they’ll see more value.

6. Persuade, don’t sell:
Clients can smell a selling style and they think it stinks.

7. Don’t be self-serving:
Judge and support the work from a business perspective. If a client thinks you are looking at creative for creative sake the trust evaporates.

8. Demonstrate enthusiasm:
Show them that you love their business and helping them solve problems.

9. Know the client:
When a client knows the creative people on a personal level it goes a long way.

10. Apply some of these steps to the people you work with:
When the internal team trusts and respects each other, the work only gets better.

Source: Ramp Projects Blog