Preparing for a Client Visit
As an agency, the way we obtain work is by pitching to major pharmaceutical and healthcare companies and having them join our team. GHG has a very high success rate when pitching and landing clients and has long lasting relationships with top pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, GSK and Merck. This week, instead of my team traveling to our clients headquarters in Pennsylvania, 2 of our clients from Pfizer will be on our GHG campus to observe the projects we are working on and to see how we are developing their brands.
As an intern, I am meeting these clients for the very first time(in person) so I took the time to ask my supervisor how I should prepare for a client visit. Here are my top 3 notable pieces of advice I took from my direct supervisor.
- Treat the day, like you treat every other day- what that means to me is to come in to work like I do any other day and do not change my routines or my working style. A client is not present to scare us, but instead they are genuinely curious how things are done and the operations behind what we produce. After all, clients mostly see the finish products not really any of the nitty gritty behind it.
- Be informed on their department within their respected company– basically know what they do. If you understand what their role is, you can understand what their day to day may look like and the type of people they interact with to help formulate questions and also understand their questions a lot better. Knowing what they do for their company should be a given, but if you really do not know, a simple company search won’t hurt.
- Stay attentive during meetings- even though the client is not here for the intern, be sure to stay attentive and engaged. I’d suggest taking notes by hand so there is no question as to whether you’re actually listening or searching the web. Being engaged to me doesn’t mean interrupting the meeting to ask your “pressing” questions, but instead jotting it down then on some down time, approaching the client with a well informed question that you know has definitely not been answered.