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Get up to speed on a new client's industry before the first call
Learning a client's industry from scratch before each engagement eats hours of unbilled time.
What the agent did
An independent marketing consultant posting on Reddit said that before every new client he has to learn their industry, competitors, and rules. That used to mean hours of searching and juggling tabs. Now he runs four or five Perplexity questions before the call, such as the main regulatory problems facing a type of brand, or which marketing channels a competitor seems to use, and reads the cited sources. He then records his own thoughts out loud, and that becomes the start of his proposal.
What the owner still checks
This is a starting point, not expert advice. Check anything about laws or regulations against the official source, and don't present a competitor guess as fact to your client.
The value is in the links under each answer. Click a couple before you repeat a fact or a number.
Try this job
Starter prompt written by Agents 101. This was written for this guide. It is not a quote from the original post. Change the names, amounts, and accounts so they match you before you send it.
I have a first call with a client in [industry]. Give me a short briefing with sources: 1) the biggest changes in this industry in the last year, 2) the main rules or regulations they have to follow, 3) three competitors and the marketing channels each seems to use, and 4) five smart questions I should ask on the call.
Source
Reddit (opens in a new tab), dated .
Added to Agents 101 on . Any dollar amounts are what the original person said. We did not check them.