From Salesperson to Detective: What to Find Out About a Customer Before the First Meeting
Adela Mrazkova
5/21/2025
Sales
Preparing for a sales meeting includes thoroughly researching the client. This makes it easier to align their needs and goals with your product or service, capturing their interest. Read on to learn how to do it and what to find out about a lead before the meeting.
Use the Digital Footprint to Learn as Much as Possible
Forget about selling at the first meeting. Clients don’t want to be sold to—they need someone who understands their needs and goals, and who can help them achieve them. If you know these things in advance and can offer a meaningful solution, you’ll pleasantly surprise the lead and earn their trust.
To pull that ace out of your sleeve, you need to know as much as possible about the lead. In today’s world, where everyone leaves a digital footprint online, that’s fairly easy to do.
1. Check Who You’ll Be Meeting
First and foremost, get familiar with the names—and especially the faces—of the people you'll be meeting. Look at the About Us page on the company’s website or check out their profiles on LinkedIn. This way, you avoid the awkwardness of not recognizing someone at the meeting.
First impressions matter, and a great tip from the article How to Nail Your First Meeting With a New Client is to make sure you know how to correctly pronounce the name of the company you’re meeting with.
The same goes for the names of their business partners or the names of the people you’ll be meeting.
2. Research the Customer’s Background
LinkedIn and the company website can also reveal the person’s role within the company and their responsibilities. You can also find out how long they’ve been with the company, what previous work experience they have, and what career achievements they’ve made. Be careful about the accuracy of this information—verify it across multiple sources, as not every company website or LinkedIn profile is up to date.
Go deeper by looking into their education and field of study. Also check for memberships in professional associations and similar affiliations. This will help you form a clearer picture of who you’re dealing with, what your potential client’s strengths are, what they focus on, what knowledge they bring, and what might catch their interest—or raise a red flag.
3. Focus on Personal Interests
Dive even deeper into what your client is interested in and passionate about. Try to find out about their hobbies, how they spend their free time, and what they’re into outside of work. LinkedIn likely won’t be enough for this, so explore other social networks—like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
According to an article on preparing for client meetings, interviews on the company website or in the media are also good sources of personal insights. You might come across interesting details that help you prepare for the meeting and build a more personal connection.
During small talk, the client will likely appreciate that you’ve read an interview with them and know they enjoy cycling in their free time—just like you.
4. Explore the Company's Current Situation and Direction
Gather as much information as possible about the company your client works for. Visit their website and review news updates, press releases, information about new customers or suppliers, job postings, and even their annual report.
This will help you understand the company’s current condition, its direction, future plans, and challenges. You’ll be better equipped to assess their potential to invest in your products and services.
Just like with individuals, try to uncover behind-the-scenes insights and get a feel for the company’s internal atmosphere. Posts by other employees on social media offer a great opportunity to do just that.
5. Understand Customers, Testimonials, and Competitors
Don’t rely solely on what the company says about itself. You can learn a lot from what its customers say. Reviews and ratings on the website or social media reveal customer satisfaction—or issues they’re facing.
Your services might help solve those problems. For example, if customers complain about delayed deliveries and you offer logistics services, that’s the perfect argument to highlight during the meeting.
Also, research the competition. It will give you a better understanding of the entire industry and show the lead that you’re knowledgeable about the market. You might even present a solution that gives them a competitive edge. Use competitors’ websites, social media, or industry publications as sources.
6. Gather Insights from Your Predecessors
One more valuable source of information, as mentioned in the guide to acing your first client meeting, is your competition—specifically, someone who has worked with your lead before you and provided similar services.
Understanding what your predecessor offered, what worked, and what didn’t can give you a significant edge in tailoring your pitch and avoiding past mistakes.
💡 TIP
Try checking if your competitor has published a case study or testimonial about this client on their website. You might discover what the lead valued most about their previous provider—and you can look for ways to exceed that standard.
Create an Ideal Customer Persona
Getting to know your lead before the meeting helps you assess your chances of success. If you already have a clear idea of who your ideal customer is, compare that persona with the information you uncovered during your detective-style research.
To learn how to create an ideal customer persona, check out the SalesDriver educational hub for sales managers.
Adel gained experience in e-commerce and SaaS companies as a content-focused brand manager. She now uses this overlap in product marketing, where she connects what CRM can do with what customers need to hear - in a clear and easy to understand way.
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