This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

I've always believed that the first meeting with a prospective client sets the tone for everything that follows. Show up unprepared, and you're just another vendor asking them to explain their business. Show up informed, and you're a consultant who's already thinking about their problems.

That's why I built a prompt specifically for pre-sales intelligence gathering.

The Problem with Most Discovery Meetings

We've all been in those initial calls where the consultant spends the first twenty minutes asking questions they could have answered with fifteen minutes of research. What's your industry? How many employees? What systems are you using?

The prospect is polite, but you can feel the energy shift. They're wondering if they're going to have to educate you before you can help them.

I wanted to flip that dynamic. Instead of walking in cold and hoping to sound credible, I wanted to walk in with a working knowledge of their industry's specific challenges, the regulatory landscape they operate in, and the kinds of pain points that are most likely keeping them up at night.

What the Prompt Does

I created a comprehensive prompt that generates a pre-sales intelligence brief for any industry and region. You provide the basics - industry, geography, maybe some known details about their current systems - and it produces a structured document covering:

• Industry-specific operational challenges that actually matter to ERP selection
• Regional compliance and regulatory considerations
• Likely pain points ranked by severity, with suggested discovery questions
• NetSuite module recommendations mapped to those pain points
• Implementation risks worth scoping into any proposal
• Competitive landscape - including where NetSuite might not be the strongest option
• A bank of discovery questions organized by category
• A meeting prep checklist with terminology, common objections, and red flags

The output is formatted as a self-contained HTML file that's polished enough to share with colleagues or print for reference.

Why This Matters

The research itself isn't magic. Any experienced consultant could pull together similar information given enough time. The value is in having it synthesized and organized before the meeting, so you can focus on listening rather than orienting.

When I use this, I can speak in the prospect's language from the first few minutes. I can ask better questions because I'm not starting from zero. And honestly, prospects notice. They can tell when someone has done their homework versus when someone is winging it.

It also surfaces things I might not have thought to research - specific compliance requirements, industry terminology, typical inventory models. The kind of context that separates a generic ERP pitch from a conversation about their actual business.

Try It Yourself

I'm sharing both the prompt and a sample output so you can see what this looks like in practice.

• Download the Prompt
• View Sample Output - Jewelry Wholesaler

The sample brief was generated for a fictional jewelry wholesaler operating in the US and UK, currently running on FileMaker and QuickBooks. It's a good example of the depth and specificity you can expect.

A Few Notes on Using The Prompt

The prompt asks for industry, region, and any known details about the prospect's current environment. The more context you provide, the more targeted the output. But even with minimal input, it generates a useful starting point.

I'd encourage you to review and adapt the output rather than treating it as gospel. It's research assistance, not a replacement for your own judgment. Some details will be more relevant than others depending on the specific prospect.

And of course, if you learn something in the meeting that contradicts the brief, trust what you're hearing. The goal is to be prepared, not to be rigid.

The Bigger Point

Pre-sales prep is one of those things that's easy to shortcut when you're busy. There's always another proposal to write, another implementation to manage. But I've found that the time invested before a first meeting pays off disproportionately.

Prospects remember when you showed up ready. They remember when you understood their world before they had to explain it. That's the kind of first impression that builds trust - and trust is what turns prospects into clients.