It goes without saying that your first meeting (or appointment) with a prospect is important. This isn’t just some lead you’ve cold called. This is someone who has made it through that all-important first step in the sales motion, and who has at least a fair chance of becoming a client or paying customer.

During the course of that first conversation, you’ve concluded that they could be a great fit for your product or service. Not only does it seem that they have a bona fide need for what you’re offering, but you believe they also have the ability to buy. They’re a truly qualified prospect. Now it’s time to meet with them to confirm your suspicions.

This first appointment is mostly about gathering enough information to determine if the opportunity is worth pursuing any further. Not surprisingly, this involves asking a lot of questions. You’re finding out things like how are they doing what your products or services does today, if they agree in principle with the value your offerings deliver, and if they actually have the money to buy your stuff.

Why ask so many questions? Because every sales situation is a little bit different. The more questions you ask, the more clear the overall picture becomes.

Let’s say your business is making high-quality, hand-made pianos. That is a big-ticket item, and it can be an expensive purchase for an individual. The prospect might be very interested in hearing about your product, but until you have a candid discussion about the required investment, you have no idea if they can actually afford it. Every minute you spend talking to someone who can’t afford your product, and who has no intention to buy, is a minute wasted.

You might also find yourself talking to someone who has the ability to buy, but not the authority. For instance, a prospect could have enough money to invest in one of your pianos, but can’t spend that amount of money without running it past their spouse. In that case, the prospect isn’t really the ultimate or sole decision maker, and they aren’t the one who needs to be convinced of your product’s value. By asking the question, you’ve learned who you really need to be talking to.

Asking questions also allows you to understand what the buying process looks like from the buyer’s side. If you’re dealing with a big company looking to buy on a large scale, for instance, their buying process might involve meetings with a half-dozen team members over the course of two months. It’s imperative that you understand what their steps are so that you can plan your strategy accordingly.

Getting this information during that first appointment is simply a matter of asking the question. “Who else needs to weigh in on decision?” and “How do you typically go about buying a product like this?” As they fill you in on their process, you’ll want to follow up with a question like “What do you need to see from my company before you will buy from us?”

This first appointment is a big step in the sales process, but it’s typically not possible to gather all the information you need from a single meeting, and sometimes you might need to have further conversations before you can move forward. In these instances, a second step is required, called “information gathering.” But here’s the thing: You shouldn’t try to move forward until all of these questions are answered.

Trying to move forward with a prospect who doesn’t want, need, or can’t actually afford your product is a tremendous waste of everyone’s time. Spending time making your pitch to someone who isn’t a decision maker, or at the very least influential to that decision maker, is wasted effort. It’s all avoidable if you get that first meeting right.

If you do the information-gathering stage right, you will be well prepared for the next stage in the sales process.

This is the “recommendation” stage, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s the synthesis of everything the prospect has told you about their needs, combined with the other information you have gathered and your own knowledge of what your company can provide. It’s the first draft of the solution you hope to provide to their problem.

If you’ve done your job correctly, and asked the right questions, it should almost write itself.

Once the recommendation is in hand, there’s still one final step in the sales process: The Close. I’ll be talking about that in part four.