Hi Reader,

Last week a prospect wrote back to me after I'd sent her a mockup of what her website could look like.

She thought SEO was her problem. Once she saw the mockup, she realised the problem was the site itself.

I didn't have to convince her of that. She saw it and worked it out for herself.

This has happened a few times now. For the part of my business where I build ScoreApp quizzes, assessments and websites, I've found that showing people a mockup of what can actually be done is way more powerful than trying to pitch them, or trying to convince them they have a problem they need to solve.

One client, saw the mockup of her website and said, "This is like you've read my mind."

It's led to 2 signed clients in the last couple of weeks. And it's made me realise how good I've got at doing this stuff.

So why does it work so well? I think it comes down to 3 things the mockup does before we ever get on a call.

• It shows the prospect I've researched them and understand their problems.
• It shows them something they weren't aware of that's causing them issues.
• And it shows them how I'd go about fixing it.

If that can be done before the sales call, then the sales call gets a whole lot easier.

But what if you don't build anything?

Now, I build things. A mockup works for me because the thing I sell can be shown before anyone pays for it.

If you're a coach or consultant, what you sell is probably your expertise, or a program, or the way you think about a problem. You can't build a mockup of that.

But you can still send something before the call that does those same 3 things.

An example: Helen the operations consultant

Say you're Helen. You spent years running operations and finished as COO. Now you advise professional services firms (accountants, engineers and law firms with 40 to 80 people) on how to deliver work on time without overloading their staff.

A managing partner books a discovery call with you through LinkedIn.

The usual approach is to turn up, ask questions for 45 minutes and hope that somewhere along the way he realises he needs you.

Instead, the day before the call, you look at what his firm has already made public, and you use AI to read through it quickly. You notice 3 things:

• They've advertised the same project manager role 3 times in the past year.
• Their Google reviews praise the work, but more than one mentions delays.
• Their website promises fast turnaround on the services page.

So you send him a one-page document: "Here's what I noticed from the outside, here's what that pattern usually means, and here's where I'd start." And you make it look nice using Claude.

Your view is that it looks like a hiring problem, but it's probably a delivery problem, because people keep leaving the role that runs the projects.

He thought he had a recruitment problem. Now he arrives at the call wondering whether he has a delivery problem, and you're the person who spotted it. It's the same thing that happened with my prospect and her website. She thought it was SEO, and he thought it was recruitment.

The wording of the note matters as well. "From the outside" and "usually means" leave room for him to correct you, which is important, because you can't see everything from the outside.

The catch

The catch is that it takes time and effort, and it's not guaranteed to pay off. It adds work to your prospecting, and you'll do it for some people who never buy.

AI makes the research a lot quicker than it used to be, but what the pattern actually means still has to come from you. (AI will happily give you its own opinion on that too, and plenty of people will let it.)

In my experience, at least, it's worth the payoff.

Bottom line: send them something before the sales call that shows you've researched them, shows them a problem they hadn't seen, and shows them how you'd fix it. You're not going to win every single deal, but you'll win a lot more deals by approaching them this way.

If you'd like to see what this feels like from the other side, take my LinkedIn Strategy Assessment. It shows you where your LinkedIn is working and where it isn't, before we ever speak.
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