Lesson 4 - Explain all your services

Once you have a grip on the tone of the conversation, and once you have an idea of the kinds of projects your client might hire you for (which we discussed in lessons 2 and 3—if you haven’t gone through those, go back real quick and do that), the next step in the discovery call is to take them through your services.

Taking your client through your services first is a great way to give them a frame of reference for everything else you’ll be discussing on the call. If you try to show them a piece from your portfolio, or talk through how long your process takes, you’ll have to end up explaining your services while you do that anyway.

This is why you should take them through the services first. So they understand what you’re talking about.

This is also another opportunity for you to ask them what kinds of services they have in mind. With a simple page in your capabilities deck, you can show them a top-level overview of your main service offerings. Then, after quickly chatting about each one, you can ask which services might feel like an immediate fit.

If you don’t get a firm answer, then you can carry on presenting your entire capabilities deck. But if they identify one of your service offerings as especially pertinent, then you know you can spend more time explaining that one.

I hope you realize that if you follow these first few steps, you’re already miles ahead of the competition. So many creatives on discovery calls will be rambling about “storytelling,” or camera equipment. The client will be so confused about what they offer, they won’t know were to go from there.

If your internet cut out at this point, and the call ended, you’d still be in a better position to get a call from these clients because you’ve empathized with them, and you’ve shown them clearly what you can do.

Over the next few days, we’ll be discussing other important pages to show potential client on discovery calls, and key ways to seal the deal at the end of the call.