Clients always have issues.

Clients always have issues, whether they're problems to solve or opportunities to capture. You may need to raise these issues with the client ... or they may bring them up themselves.

The first step is to have an initial discussion about the issue. You'll want to lead or influence this conversation and here are 7 prompts to help with that:

1. What are the details surrounding the issue?
2. How is the current situation not working, or inadequate?
3. Who is directly affected by this issue? And who else?
4. Why is it crucial for the client to take action now?
5. What can be accomplished? And what value will that deliver for the client? What are the critical success metrics?
6. What is the potential impact of taking action?
7. What is the potential consequence of doing nothing?

Mini-mission

You need to collaborate with the client to have answers to these questions.

So run your biggest deal through these prompts and identify what you still don't know.