If you haven't already, review the Four Gates of a Strong Sales Process, Meetings That Move Relationships, and Sales Tools That Build Trust pages before starting. Together they explain the frameworks this session runs on and the standard you are helping the client reach.
Timing & Participation
Workshop: 1 of 3 (First Impressions Suite)
Duration: 60 minutes
Led by: MiM™ Coach + MiM™ Architect
Participants: Client Sales Team
The sales team — not just the sales leader — needs to be in the room for this session. Individual salespeople carry knowledge about how meetings actually run that leadership rarely sees: where conversations stall, what materials feel weak, how prospects respond when the conversation goes off-script. That ground-level intelligence is what this session is designed to surface. Without it, the session produces a polished version of leadership's assumptions rather than an accurate picture of the current state.
Preparation
Time Required: 30 minutes
Lead: MiM™ Coach
Timing: 2-3 days before the workshop
The prep work for this session is split between getting the room ready and getting yourself ready. The goal is to walk in already knowing enough about how this client sells to ask sharp questions — not to arrive cold and learn everything in real time.
Step 1. Send Prep Email
Send the following email to the client's sales leader 2–3 days before the session. The goal is to set expectations so the team arrives ready to engage — not to pre-load answers. The session opens with the Teach Deck, and the real conversation follows from there.
Prep Email
Ahead of our first session, I'd like you and your team to spend a few minutes thinking about how you currently run sales meetings.
We're not looking for polished answers. We're looking for honest ones. The more clearly you can describe what actually happens — from first contact to closed business — the more useful our time together will be.
Before we meet, consider the following:
- When a new prospect agrees to a meeting, how do you prepare?
- What does a first meeting typically look like for your team?
- Where do you feel confident in the process, and where does momentum tend to stall?
- What materials do you currently use to support a new relationship?
- If you're being honest, what do you think is missing?
Looking forward to the conversation.
Talk soon,
MiM™ Coach
Note for Coach: This should already be on the calendar at this point, but as a quick reference, this is your calendar invite.
This is also a good moment to confirm the right people will be in the room. If you have any reason to think the sales owner won't be attending, address it now — not the morning of. This session doesn't work the same way without them.
*Client Name* // First Meeting Framework
Required: Client Sales Team, MiM™ Coach, MiM™ Architect
----------------Meeting Room: *Zoom or Teams info*
Purpose: In this session, we'll walk through the MiM™ framework for high-impact sales meetings and take an honest look at how your current process measures up — identifying what's working and where we'll focus as we build out your First Impressions Suite.
Step 2. Review the Teach Deck
The deck establishes the MiM™ standard before the client evaluates their own process. By the time you move to the whiteboard, the room should have a clear picture of what great looks like — and a quiet sense of how their current reality compares.
- Open the Sales Process Discovery Teach Deck in Canva
- Practice transitions
- Focus on flow, not memorization
Your goal is to be fluent in what this session is designed to surface.
Step 3. Review Client Responses
If the client responded to the prep email before the session, read their answers before you walk in. You don't need to over-analyze them — just absorb what they shared so the conversation builds on their thinking rather than starting from scratch. A client who took the time to reflect deserves to feel that effort wasn't wasted.
If no responses came in, that's fine. The session is designed to surface everything you need in real time.
Teach
Time: ~10 minutes
Lead: MiM™ Coach
Walk through the Sales Process Discovery Teach Deck in sequence. It covers the Four Gate Model, what each meeting type is designed to accomplish, and which tools belong at each stage. By the time you reach the Gather slide, the room has a shared vocabulary and a clear sense of the standard they're about to measure themselves against.
Gather
Time: ~30 minutes
Lead: Coach (facilitation) + Architect (diagnostic listening)
This is the core of the session. The Coach guides the team through their current sales process against the MiM™ framework. The Architect listens for what exists, what's missing, and what the team says without realizing they're saying it.
"We just walked through the MiM™ standard — the gates, the meetings, the tools. Now let's look at how your team moves a relationship today. We'll go stage by stage. I want to hear the real version — not the ideal, not how it should go. What actually happens."
Core Prompts to Guide the Conversation
Work through each gate in sequence. You don't need to use every question. Read the room and go deeper where you're learning the most.
G1 — First Meeting
- Walk me through what a first meeting with a new prospect looks like for your team. What's the goal?
- What do you bring into that meeting? What materials, if any?
- How do you show up — what does your setup look like if it's virtual? What do you wear in person?
- How do you open? What do you typically share about the company?
- By the end of a first meeting, what does success look like?
G2 — Technical Talks
- What happens after a strong first meeting? How does the relationship move forward?
- Is there a second meeting structure you follow, or does it depend on the rep?
- What tools or materials support that conversation?
G3 — Proposal
- When do you send a proposal? What triggers that step?
- What does your proposal look like? Walk me through how it's structured.
- Is there a standard template, or does each rep build from scratch?
- Do you present it, or do you send it and wait?
Across All Stages
- Where does a deal most commonly stall?
- How different would your strongest and an average rep's process look at each of these stages?
- What would a prospect say about the experience of going through your sales process?
Your Facilitation Focus
- If the room starts softening the reality, pull it back: "What does that look like when it goes the other way?"
- The Architect is listening for specificity. "We have a deck" isn't enough — push toward the actual artifact.
- Capture exact language. When someone says "our proposals are usually just a number in an email," that's a deliverable gap, a process gap, and a signal about how the team thinks about closing.
- Don't fill silences too quickly.
When Leaders Don't Have the Full Picture
If frontline salespeople know things the leader doesn't, let those voices in without making the leader feel undermined. A good way to surface it: "Let's hear from someone who's running the process every day. When you're in the room with a prospect at this stage, what's actually in your hands?"
Immediate Follow-Up (End of Session)
Send within a few hours of the session closing.
Follow-Up Email
From: MiM™ Coach
To: Client Team
Subject: Sales Process Discovery Follow Up
—————-
Hi *contact name(s)*,
Thank you for a great session today. Hearing how your team currently moves a relationship from first contact to closed business — and where the friction lives — was exactly what we needed.
Here's what we took away:
A few things your team does well:
- [Personalize — 1-2 genuine observations]
Where we see the most opportunity to build:
- [Personalize — 2-3 specific gaps named in the session]
Our next step is to take everything we heard today and come back with a clear plan for what should be built, in what order, and why. That's Session 2 — the Alignment Checkpoint. We'll have a draft summary of what we heard and a proposed scope ready for your review.
We'll be in touch to get that on the calendar.
Talk soon,
MiM™ Coach
Synthesize
Timeline: Within 24–48 hours of the session
Lead: Architect
Synthesis for this session is the Architect's work — turning what was heard in the room into a clear, documented read of the client's current state and the gaps it reveals.
Start with the transcript. Pull the language the client used to describe their process at each gate. You're not summarizing — you're extracting signal. What does their G1 process actually look like? What's the proposal situation, really? Where did the team's description of the process break down into something more honest?
At each gate, note three things: what they have, what's missing, and what's inconsistent. "What they have" is the tool or practice that exists in some form. "What's missing" is the gap that will directly affect their ability to pursue relationships at volume. "What's inconsistent" is the variation between salespeople — the behavior that works when it works but only because a strong rep is carrying it.
A useful finding is specific and actionable. "Their proposals aren't branded" is a finding. "They need better materials" is not. The Architect's synthesis should produce a working list of what needs to be built — specific enough that you could hand it to the Coach and the Creative Director and they'd know what to make.
If you're unsure what good looks like at each gate, review Sales Tools That Build Trust before completing your synthesis. It defines the MiM™ standard for every tool in the sales process. If you want a second set of eyes on your findings before Session 2, bring them to the Experience Design Studio for a consult.
This synthesis becomes the foundation for Session 2. The Alignment Checkpoint is only as useful as what you bring into it.
Share
The synthesis stays internal until Session 2. Use the Fathom recording and your session notes to build the alignment document — drop them into Claude and use the /vx-pdf-builder skill to generate it. It covers two sections: what we heard, and what we recommend building. This is what you present in the Alignment Checkpoint — getting the client's buy-in on a polished summary signals that the work product ahead will be held to the same standard.
What's Next
Session 2 is the Alignment Checkpoint. The Architect presents the summary, the client confirms the scope, and nothing goes into production until that alignment is in place.