What should I know about a client before the first meeting?

Six things: what the company sells and to whom, how it describes itself, who its main competitors are and where it stands against them, the size and direction of its market, what changed recently, and what AI assistants say about it. With those, the meeting starts at their problem, not at their homepage.

Where do I find this information?

The company's own site, its competitors' sites, news and press releases, job postings, case studies, review sites and filings where they exist. Then ask Claude or ChatGPT about the company and its category, and note what comes back.

How long should pre-meeting research take?

Done by hand, a thorough picture takes days of reading. A focused version, the six questions answered with sources, should take an afternoon. A Haycion workspace builds it from the client's URL in about an hour, for you to check and correct.

Should I use the client's internal documents?

Not before the first meeting. Public sources are enough to show you did the work, and they give you a picture of how the market sees the client, which is often the most useful thing you can bring. Add the client's own material once the engagement starts.

How do I avoid walking in with the wrong picture?

Treat everything you found as a hypothesis. Lead with a few specific observations and ask whether they match what the client sees. Being corrected on a detail costs nothing; being generic costs the meeting.

How to research a client before the first meeting

The short answer

Before a first meeting with a client or prospect, you want answers to six questions: what the company sells and to whom, how it describes itself, who it competes with and where it stands, how big and how fast-moving its market is, what changed recently, and what AI assistants say about it. Every one of them can be answered from public sources. Done by hand, that takes days; done well with the right tools, about an hour, leaving the time for the part only you can do: deciding what it means.

The six questions

1. What does the company sell, and to whom?

List the products and services, and for each one the buyer it is built for. Look for the gap between the two: a product with no clear buyer, a buyer the site talks to but nothing serves. That gap is often what the client wants help with, whether or not they have named it.

2. How does it describe itself?

Read the homepage, the about page and the last few pieces of marketing as a buyer would. Write down the three claims they lean on. Then check whether anything on the site proves them: a case study, a number, a named customer. Claims without proof are the first thing to raise.

3. Who does it compete with, and where does it stand?

Name three to five competitors: the ones the client would name, and the ones a buyer would compare it with, which are not always the same. For each, note what they claim that the client doesn’t, and the reverse. How to run a competitive analysis for a client covers this step in depth.

4. How big is the market, and where is it going?

Find a credible size and growth figure for the client’s main segment, with its source. You don’t need precision before a first meeting; you need to know whether the client is in a growing market or a crowded, flat one, because that changes what good advice looks like.

5. What changed recently?

Scan the last six to twelve months: news, funding, leadership changes, new products, job postings. A burst of sales hires, a new market, a departed founder: recent change is usually why a company is talking to a consultant now.

6. What do AI assistants say about it?

Ask Claude and ChatGPT what the company does, and who they would recommend in its category. Note whether the client comes up, whether the description is right, and who is named instead. Few consultants do this yet, and it is often the observation that makes a client lean in. How to check whether ChatGPT and Claude recommend your client has the full method.

Where to look

The company’s own site: products, pricing, case studies, the about page, the blog.
Competitors’ sites, read with the same questions.
News and press releases for the last year.
Job postings, which show where the company is investing before it says so.
Review sites and public filings where the company has them.
AI assistants, as a source and as a test of how the market sees the client.

Turning research into a briefing

Don’t bring a stack of notes. Bring one page: the six answers, two or three specific observations, and the questions you want to ask. Lead with an observation (“your site talks to operations directors, but every case study is about finance”) and ask whether it matches what they see. Being corrected on a detail costs nothing. Being generic costs the meeting.

How a Haycion workspace does the research

Enter the client’s website, and the workspace builds the picture in about an hour, not days: a company baseline with products and feature importance, ideal customer profiles and personas with a priority score from 1 to 100, value propositions with their gaps, a SWOT and case studies; competitors found and scored on a weighted Strength Matrix; market segments with size, growth and sources; and, on the Practice plan, a check of what AI assistants say about the client. The first snapshot, competitor ranking and brief are usually ready the same working day.

Public data only. Nothing from inside the client. You check the picture, correct anything that’s wrong, and walk in knowing the client’s business from the same sources a buyer would read. If the site says too little, a written brief fills the gaps. Once the engagement starts, documents you upload stay in that client’s workspace, and a rebuild shows what changed.

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