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So you landed your first meeting with a senior stakeholder.
You want to make a good impression. You want to show you're sharp and capable. You want alignment. You want to get to "yes."
You're instinct is to rush in and pitch.
Don't.
Slow down.
Your first meeting is not about alignment. It's about how well you listen.
Less experienced product managers often rush to:
Explain their thinking
Show off their work
Prove they're smart
And get that quick head nod so they can move on
That almost never works.
What You’ll Learn Today
Common mistakes made by PMs when meeting a stakeholder for the first time.
What strong PMs do instead.
How stakeholder discovery is similar to but different from customer discovery.
How to uncover what actually drives stakeholder motivations.
Simple techniques to build trust and influence from the very first meeting.
Your Real Goal: Understand The Person Before The Problem
Stakeholders are not just roles. They're people with:
Incentives
Pressures
Metrics
Career goals
Past experiences with product teams
If you don't understand how they see the world, you'll struggle to influence decisions later.
When you understand:
→ what they're accountable for
→ how they're measured
→ what success looks like to them
You gain leverage.
Decision-making leverage.
You'll be able to frame ideas to them in a way that actually lands.
Stakeholder Discovery ≠ Customer Discovery
Stakeholder discovery looks like customer discovery, but the goal is different.
Customer Discovery
Understand their work
Identify problems and unmet needs
Inform product decisions
Stakeholder Discovery
Understand how they think and decide
Learn what matters to them
Build trust and buy-in for decisions
Skip this step and your roadmap can get derailed before customers ever see it.
Do it well, and you earn influence.
This Is a Learning Conversation, Not a Pitch
A stakeholder discovery meeting — especially your first one with them — is about learning, not selling.
That means:
Listening more than talking
Making them feel heard
Creating safety and trust
You'll speak, of course. But your job is to create space. Not to fill it.
11 Ways to Run a Strong Stakeholder Discovery Meeting
1. Be clear on your objective
Know why you're meeting. Is this:
A casual introduction?
The start of a shared initiative?
Context gathering before a big decision?
Have a purpose—even if it's simple.
2. Keep it informal when possible
People open up when they're relaxed.
Best options:
Coffee or lunch
A small, neutral conference room
If they want to meet in their office, go there. People are most comfortable on their home turf.
Remote?
Video is fine
Keep the tone light and conversational
3. Start with a warm opening
Begin as a human, not a PM.
Look for natural conversation starters:
Family photos
Personal items
Something interesting in their background
Examples:
"That's a great photo. Are those your kids?"
"Sweet guitar! How long have you played?"
This works on video too.
4. Keep it confidential
Do not use a notetaker in a first meeting.
Recording kills openness.
If you must:
Take light notes yourself
Prioritize eye contact and attention
Connection matters more than perfect notes.
5. Ask a question. Then stop talking
This meeting is about them.
Start with questions like:
"What are your goals?"
"What's challenging right now?"
"What does success look like for you?"
"What's top of mind this quarter?"
"How has your team worked with product in the past?"
Then pause. Let them talk.
6. Start high-level, then narrow
High-level questions:
Feel safer
Build context
Help people open up
Save specifics for later.
7. Use open-ended questions
Use prompts that invite depth:
"Tell me more about…"
"What’s challenging about…"
"Can you give me an example?"
Use yes/no questions only to confirm understanding.
8. Use mirroring to unlock more detail
Mirroring is a simple, powerful technique used by world-class negotiators to get people to reveal more about themselves and their intentions.
It simply involves repeating back the last few words or the last sentence they said.
Example:
Them: "We struggle to prioritize across teams."
You: "Struggle to prioritize?"
Why it works:
Signals deep listening
Encourages them to expand
Helps them clarify their own thinking
Chris Voss, former FBI negotiator, teaches this well. It's worth learning.
9. Confirm understanding (carefully)
Periodically play back what you heard.
Try:
"Let me play back what I think I heard. Please correct me if I'm off."
This:
Builds trust
Keeps them engaged
Often surfaces more nuance
You could even gently misinterpret to prompt correction. But don't overdo it; otherwise, they'll think you're not listening.
10. Embrace silence
Yes, silence feels uncomfortable. Anxious even.
It's also incredibly effective.
Pause. Let them think. Let them continue.
If you're a chatty person, this will be especially hard for you. So, practice.
But silence often leads to the most important insights.
11. Ask: "Who else should I talk to?"
This reveals decision dynamics.
Examples:
A CMO may rely on a Marketing Director
A VP of Finance may defer to the CFO
You're mapping influence, not hierarchy.
Use The LISTEN Approach
Here's a simple way to run it well.
I use the LISTEN approach in first stakeholder meetings:
L — Lead with intent Know why you're there, even if the goal is just learning.
I — Informality beats formality People open up when they're relaxed.
S — Start human Rapport before roadmap.
T — Talk less than you think Ask a question. Stop talking.
E — Expand from high-level to detail Psychological safety first. Precision later.
N — Name what you heard "Let me play back what I heard…" builds trust fast.
If you're running your first stakeholder meeting soon, save this.
The LISTEN approach is what I wish I'd learned before my early roadmaps got blocked.
This is the kind of mistake you only notice after decisions stop going your way.
[For Subscribers Only] Download the Free Cheat Sheet ⬇️
I put this into an easy to reference cheat sheet for you. Download it by clicking the button right below this image. [For subscribers only.]
Strong Stakeholder Relationships Start Here
Your first stakeholder meeting sets the tone for everything that follows.
Listen first.
Understand their world.
Build trust before pushing for alignment.
Do this well, and influencing decisions gets much easier.
Not because you talked more. But because you listened better.
That’s all for this week.
Have a joyful week, and, if you can, make it joyful for someone else too.
cheers,
shardul
Here are 4 ways I can help you today:
Strategy Design Workshop: Transform scattered priorities into clear, actionable direction. I’ll facilitate your team through a customized workshop to align stakeholders and create strategies that actually get executed instead of forgotten. Book a call.
Product Management Audit: Get a clear picture of what’s working and what’s holding your team back. Through a systematic analysis, I’ll evaluate your strategy, processes, roles, metrics, and culture. You’ll walk away a practical set of findings and actionable recommendations to strengthen your product organization. Book a call.
Corporate Training: Elevate your entire product organization. I’ll teach your team how to think and act strategically, craft outcome-driven roadmaps, and dramatically improve how they deliver measurable results that matter to your business. Book a call.
Improv Based Team Building Workshop: Boost creativity, trust, and collaboration through improv. Your team will problem-solve faster and work better together. Book a call.
Shardul Mehta
I ❤️ product managers.