The freelancer's guide to closing customer meetings

7 effective techniques to get the contract traded home

Imagine spending a lot of energy establishing contact with a customer, scheduling a meeting in their busy calendar, preparing a long and thorough presentation, preparing a good and value-adding offer - and ultimately being rejected in favor of another provider.

As a freelancer, the feeling of missing out on a deal with a client whose business you could really boost and who would be a good financial case is among the absolute worst.

And we want to help you avoid it. With this guide, we'll teach you how to Close more customers, retain them, and have both better and longer partnerships with them.

Here are the 7 most important things you need to be aware of to optimize your ability to close customer meetings.

1: Go in with good intentions

The longest and best customer partnerships are those that are mutually valuable. The ones where your work creates value in every way - and the customer can see that value and compensates you for your work.

Therefore, when you walk into a customer meeting, you should have the mindset that your biggest ambition is to help the customer. You want to grow the customer's business and won't take the job at any cost - only if you can see yourself fulfilling the role that fits your niche.

In other words: Your intentions are good - and the customer can sense this subconsciously through your body language.

And what does body language look like?

1a: Positive body language: 3 quick tips

Entire books could be written about body language and the effect it has on the recipient, so this section should definitely not be seen as a complete list.

Instead, think of it as the 3 most important elements you need to master if you want to optimize your chances of success at the customer meeting.

1. Smile and maintain eye contact

A genuine smile and pleasant eye contact is the shortest route to a good connection between two people - even when those people are client and freelancer.

2. Open yourself up (never cross your arms).

If you're sitting with your arms crossed, you might as well stand up and say "I don't want to be here - and you can't get to know me". Instead, focus on opening up your body and gesture with calm hand and arm movements that drive your points home.

3. Involve everyone involved - take turns looking at people when you speak.

There is (almost) nothing more boring than sitting in a meeting where you feel like you don't matter. For example, if the customer is represented by three people in the meeting, it's important that you make sure you speak to and look at all three - so everyone feels welcome and useful.

2: Have a game plan that you follow

What is the goal of the meeting?

To sell, to get to know the customer, to align expectations - or something else entirely?

Be clear about your desired outcome of the meeting - and have a clear plan for the meeting to maximize the chances of achieving that outcome. For example, a plan for a sales meeting could look like this:

• Good, strong opening with lots of smiles and a polite introduction of yourself
• Introductions - the customer talks about their business, you talk about yourself
• Needs assessment - what does the customer need?
• What is the customer doing right now to meet that need?
• How can you meet the need in a better way?
• What similar cases have you had and what was the cost of those cases?
• Presentation of price estimates and initial quotes
• Agreement is made

It's important that you know where you want the meeting to go - and that you're ready to take control to move it in that direction.

However, be ready to deviate from the plan if the mood calls for it and you feel that it has a good effect on the meeting.

3: Listen and learn - get the customer to tell you exactly what they want

Get the customer to talk - preferably a lot. And remember to regularly ask what the customer is saying to make sure you have the right understanding at all times.

Then it's important that you use the information the customer gives you. Only then can you ensure that your solution is exactly what the customer needs - and wants to spend money on.

You might end up selling something completely different from what was on the agenda. You might end up selling exactly what you thought you would.

But the chance of selling anything at all improves by (approximately) 100% if you make sure you listen to your customer.

In other words: To close customer meetings, you need to go after the customer - not the sale.

In addition, make sure to address barriers to buying from you. Make it part of your preparation to note and visualize possible objections to your service in general and you as a provider specifically.

3a: How to build trust with the customer

If you genuinely care about your customer and you want what's best for their business, your customer will feel it.

Don't pressure the customer to say yes. Present your solution and price and then let the customer decide at their leisure.

You can't and shouldn't force your customer to do anything. Instead, let it be an independent decision where they want you as much as you want them - and preferably more.

This is the best collaboration in the long run.

4: Preparation time is time well spent

The worst customer meetings are the ones where the salesperson messes up and doesn't know who the customer is or what they need.

That's why it's crucial that you're well prepared for the meeting. You need to know the customer's business - how do they make money, how big are they, what do they dream of achieving, what is the role of the person you're talking to - and you need to tie it all together into your solution.

Always have an agenda and/or an actual presentation ready. It's often good to have a PowerPoint presentation prepared that sets the structure for the meeting.

However, keep in mind that the presentation itself should be clear - not 25 densely written pages that you then sit and reproduce verbatim.

Have as few slides as possible with as little text as possible that you can talk openly from.

5: Show the customer who you are

As a freelancer, you're not the only one with your service. You know it and the customer knows it. That's why you need to get to a place together where the customer can feel that you are different from the rest of the market.

At the same time, both parties naturally hope for a long and fruitful collaboration. And the most important component of a long collaboration, besides professional competence, is that the chemistry is there.

So show the customer some personality. Tell them about yourself, but don't overdo it. You can weave some personality into your business story - how and why you started, what is your background and how are you doing today.

Bring something of yourself to the meeting.

6: Make affirmative sales

Go for a "yes" at the end of the meeting.

At the end of the meeting, summarize what you've talked about. The customer wants this and that - and you can offer this and that at this price.

If you can get a yes at the meeting itself, that's obviously best. But if it's the first time you meet the customer and you're "just" meeting to find out if your service might be relevant to them, it might not be the most obvious time to go for a sale.

On the other hand: If the customer at the first meeting is obviously interested in you and your service, the next natural question is of course: "How much does it cost?"

If you can give a price already at the meeting, that's fine. Often you can give an estimate and say that you need to calculate (freelance price calculator? See here) a bit to come up with a detailed offer. Here it's fine to say that you will follow up by email with a more detailed offer.

7: How to follow up on a customer meeting

It's generally good to follow up on the meeting the same day you had it.

Write an email summarizing the most important things you talked about. Remember to focus on the good stuff - that the customer had a need for your solution and that you had the capacity and ability to deliver. When it's time to deliver, remember to keep track of your freelance contract.

If the customer replies to that email, you can take it from there. If they don't respond, you can follow up again 3-7 days after the meeting.

Remember: Just because the customer doesn't respond doesn't necessarily mean they're not interested. Far from it. It can mean busyness and a thousand other things, and most people actually want the salesperson to stay in touch and in control of the project.

Both you and the customer are interested in getting started - remember that.

Bonus: the list goes to 8 - what about digital meetings?

With the digital meeting, we are entering a whole new world - and most of us have gotten used to Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and all the others playing tricks on us from time to time.

While all of the above points apply to the digital meeting as such, there are some new things you need to pay special attention to.

These are the most important:

• Get the technical stuff right - good camera (and raise it so you're not talking "down" to the camera), good connection, no background noise. Remember, don't interrupt, especially because of the delay. It makes for an awkward dynamic in the conversation.
• In digital meetings, the opportunity for body language disappears (almost - you can accommodate it a little by standing up and presenting). This makes the smile and "eye contact" with the camera even more important.

But otherwise, the other rules apply: get the customer talking, listen actively and make sure you have a good needs assessment.

Don't be afraid to take the lead and set the structure of the customer meeting - but get the customer engaged right away. In digital meetings, having a clear structure and getting the customer to open up is possibly even more important.