# Prompt: the questions for a kick-off meeting with a client

> The answers missing in month one are always the same. Asking them on day one saves weeks.

- Type: prompt
- Category: strategy
- Labels: andie, agencies, onboarding, prompts
- Author: Redação Swonkie, Equipa editorial
- Published: 2026-10-20
- Canonical: https://swonkie.com/en/hub/kick-off-meeting-questions/

## Prompt

```
I am about to start managing a brand's social media. I will give you the industry, what it sells
and to whom.

Write the kick-off meeting questions, grouped into five blocks:
- business (what actually makes money, what is seasonal, what is changing)
- audience (who buys, who influences the purchase, who will never buy)
- voice (what the brand would never say, who signs off, which subjects are off limits)
- operations (who approves, on what deadline, who answers messages, who holds the access)
- success (what has to happen in three months for this to count as working)

Six questions per block maximum. Open questions, one thing at a time. No question whose answer is
on the brand's website.

At the end, name the three questions that, left unanswered, make the work impossible to do well.
```

---
Month-three problems almost all come from questions nobody asked on day one: who approves, what the
brand never says, what counts as success.

The block most often missing from kick-offs is **operations**. Two hours get spent on strategy and
nobody asks who answers messages on a Saturday. That question starts the first real discussion.

## How to use it

Before the meeting, with the brand's site already read. The prompt is told not to repeat what is
public, so the output improves a lot if you give it real context rather than just the industry name.

## The three final questions

They usually come out as: who approves, what success means in three months, and which subjects are
off limits. If you leave the meeting without those, it is worth pressing in writing before starting.