Clients think they’re supposed to ask agencies to “present their credentials.” The reality is that clients only do an agency review about 12 to 13 times over their entire career and don’t have much experience in conducting them.

What they really want to do is to talk about their business. Especially now with the recession. It's all they care about.

So, do a turnabout. Instead of launching into your credentials, say to them, “before we start, we just had a couple of questions.”

What they don’t know is that you've developed . . . and distributed among your team . . . and memorized . . . 30+ great questions . . . that you proceed to ask one after the other, after the other, after the other.

All the while you build on their responses and briefly sprinkle comments about your experience in quick 5-second "asides" when appropriate.

And if, when the time is up and you say “thanks,” and they comment, “but you didn’t talk about your agency?” you respond, “gee, if the last hour of talking together doesn’t make you feel like we're right go to the next step of the review, I'm not certain what we could tell you about our agency that would change that.”

From Robb High’s New Business Boot Camp 3.0.