In this year plan to put my knowledge into practice and learn more about different topics, I've also set up a goal to bring real impact. Instead of just working on personal projects or case studies with analyses and proposals for products I will not be able to affect, I've finally started to do what I've been longing for: help people around me and try to improve some aspect of their business.

With this goal of really impacting people's work, I've decided to start with the closest person that could possibly bear with me during this whole first "experimental" process: my own sister.

The "client"

Thereza is an architect who has a few years of experience and previously worked in her own business with a friend. After the split, she has already done some more projects but also had to take a break. Now she is back focusing on her business, and has started creating content again on Instagram with a new focus on her career: she wants to apply Neuro Architecture in her projects. She has found her passion for it and other holistic approaches in architecture and wants to work and grow with this approach.

After giving some tips here and there throughout the years and planning to build a website for her, now I proposed us to take a different direction: I will be her client and will go through all the customer journey.

The idea is that when experiencing the whole journey the customer would face, I would be able to:

• document the different steps
• analyse its various aspects
• propose improvements along the way

To document how this experimental process will go, I chose to create a series of posts detailing each step. With that, I can see the evolution of the process and take many learnings from it.

The problems

Thereza wanted to initially have a website but I knew upfront that this would be one of the last of my concern in this process.

Ultimately, she wants to be able to get clients who values a Neuro Architecture approach and her uniqueness to their projects and grow her business.

Her biggest problem right now is that she's not reaching many people on Instagram and the amount of potential clients contacting her is low.

She's just been back at restructuring her Instagram profile and creating content so she's still figuring out the best way to do it.

I certainly want to (and could) help her with that, but I'd need to study more about content creation, marketing and branding. I'm also really interested in those but they're not my current focus. I'll explore that at a later stage.

For now, I've decided to focus on where I can impact more: she doesn't have a well structured sales funnel.

That's the problem I chose to tackle and for that I had to wear a UX research hat.

The process: putting myself in the customer shoes

In UX research, a well known advice is to "put yourself in the user's shoes" when designing so that you try to experience the product/service with the user in mind. Even though this is a common practice, people should be aware of the bias and the "user-scented" design that comes with it. It certainly shouldn't be the only way to make design decisions, as doing real research and talking to users are the best ways to really understand their needs, but it definitely helps if used with caution.

For my case, which I cannot have real customers to talk yet, this was the best way to understand the experience of a prospective customer reaching out to Thereza. So I put myself in the customer shoes and went through the journey to know how it currently is.

Based on the consumer decision-making process, I played the role of a potential customer already in the second step of the process, the information and alternative search stage.

So I messaged her Instagram profile and we went through the normal process:

• we exchanged messages
• switched communication to Whatsapp
• she proposed the initial sales call
• we scheduled it (after "I was reluctant about it")
• we had the sales presentation call

During the journey, and in the call, I tried to act as a "more difficult user". That way I could see how she handled a bit of objections and answered some questions to give some feedback afterwards.

The make or break moment: the sales call

This first call is the biggest part in this initial journey. It's the make or break moment. She could either convince the potential customers that her service is the best fit for what they need or lose them completely.

For this, as normally potential couple customers do it together, my wife also joined. It was also good since I could get feedback from her and she could give feedback to Thereza in the end.

During the call, it was a bit difficult to distant ourselves so I had to steer the conversation back to the usual flow in moments where my sister would make side-note comments. However, for the most part, it went smooth as if we were talking to her for the first time.

As I know the importance of this step in the whole process, I aimed to already discuss improvements based on my experience. While we were having the conversarion, I had already identified multiple opportunities to improve the call so after concluding it, we stayed a bit longer for feedbacks and suggestions.

How might we improve the sales call and presentation?

Before going through the details about the call, there's one important distinction to understand: the types of her service. She has two offering:

• "Architecture or interior project": where customers actually want to do big or structural changes to their home and the project produces more deliverables.
• "Interior consulting": where customers only want interior design changes, and the project is smaller. This is our case.

During the meeting itself, I identified a couple of areas for improvement that could increase the chances of conversion. Key observations included:

• The introduction to herself was too short, leaving little opportunity to learn more about the customer or make them feel connect to her.
• Her unique neuroarchitecture and holistic approach, was not clearly highlighted or positioned as a differentiator.
• Partner services were introduced early in the presentation, before fully establishing the value of her own offering.
• Some slides focused on the "architecture project" deliverables rather than only focusing on my case.
• The "price reveal" and "upsell" part lacked clarity, making it difficult to distinguish between the differences in the offering.

After giving good feedback about what really works well already, we went through all the slides, highlighting the points above and some minor others.

For the presentation, we agreed on some improvements, that could make it more engaging, persuasive, and conversion-focused.

I could break them down in 3 segments:

Presentation improvements suggestions

1. Initial slides - Strengthening the opening pitch

• Focus on building a stronger connection with potential customers from the very beginning.

One of the biggest distinctions of her services is her holistic approach, which prioritizes a deep understanding of the customer to create a highly personalized project that relates to their elements/characteristics. While this is clear during the briefing meeting, after a customer has already decided to work with her, it is not yet emphasized enough in the sales call.

To address this, I suggested restructuring the introduction to highlight her approach upfront while also allowing customers more space to talk. A simple but effective way to do this is by asking two key questions early in the conversation:

1. "Tell me a bit more about how you found me and why you decided to reach out?" This is an easy question that helps clients feel comfortable while also providing valuable insights into her sales funnel: how people discover her services, what content get their attention, and what motivates them to take action. This will be useful for refining marketing strategies later on.

2. "Regarding the project itself, can you share a bit about how this need came about and how excited you are about this new phase?" This question brings the focus to the customer’s journey, their current moment in life, and the personal significance of the project. Every home project represents a new chapter in a customer's life, whether it’s expanding a family, creating a dream space, or adapting to a lifestyle change. Understanding these deeper motivations can create an emotional connection and play a role in their decision.

2. Services and project phases slides

• For the services slide, I proposed some minor design tweaks to make her offerings clearer, along with one key removal: a partner’s service she recommends.

The reasoning behind this was simple: since it’s not a service she provides, it’s best to keep the focus only on her offering. Any cross-selling should come at a later stage in the process rather than in the beginning.

An important part of her process, which happens during the first phase of the project, is the briefing meeting. This is where she takes the time to truly understand her clients, and it is a key element that sets her approach apart.

Even though there was a slide on this, it didn’t clearly communicate how it ties into Neuro Architecture or why this adds so much value to the project. To improve this, I proposed:

• Some changes in the design and content in the "briefing" slide: focus on showing some of the key questions she asks, reinforcing how deeply personalized her process is.
• Clarifying the link to Neuro Architecture: by explaining how understanding the client’s needs at a psychological and emotional level impacts the final design, the value of her approach becomes much more clearer.

Another big change involved the project phases and deliverables. Since she offers two different services, "interior consulting" and "full architectural projects", the presentation included slides for both. So for us who were only interested in "interior consulting", the presentation had unnecessary explanations and extra time spent clarifying the differences.

• To avoid any confusion, I proposed creating two separate presentations, one tailored to each service.

Most of the slides would remain the same, but the "project phases" section would be clearer about the deliverables. She would still have the flexibility to show a glimpse of the other offering, in case they become interested as well.

3. Prices, deadlines and ending

For the last part of the presentation, we had some small design improvements suggestions and a new section introduced.

Optimizing the Pricing and Deadlines Slides

• Instead of using two separate slides for the interior consulting packages, I suggested combining them into a single slide, placing them side by side. This allows for a clearer, more intuitive comparison, just like when we see different subscription tiers on websites.
• The deadlines slide needed minor tweaks to improve readability: reducing text and adding bullet points would make the information more digestible.

Dedicated space for customer questions & feedback

One key element missing from the presentation was a structured moment for the customer to ask any final questions before the call ended.

While she was already asking if there were any doubts, it felt a bit rushed. So I felt this final part of the conversation could serve two important purposes:

• Ensuring clarity: giving the customer space to raise any remainig concerns.
• Gaining insights: understanding how the customer felt about the presentation and even the overall process so far.

To address this, I proposed adding a dedicated slide at the end, explicitly encouraging the customer to:

• Ask any additional questions.
• Share feedback on the presentation and their experience so far.

This small change can make a great impact by making the call feel more conversational, customer-centric, and engaging. Besisdes that it also provides valuable insights to refine her approach later.

Next steps: Data-driven improvements

After reviewing the slides and discussing about all these suggestions, we also aligned on another important aspect to improve any process: data collection and analysis.

With all the changes, we're aiming to make the sales presentation more engaging, clearly highlighting Thereza’s unique value, and help potential customers feel a stronger connection with her.

However, this is only the final step of the initial funnel. To improve the entire customer journey, we need a data-driven approach to track and analyze performance.

To create the foundation for future improvements, I suggested she collect two key types of data:

1. Funnel Performance Metrics

• Track how many users contact her, continue the conversation, switch to WhatsApp, schedule a sales call, and convert.

This will set baseline metrics, allowing us to measure the impact of any future optimizations.

2. Customer Behavior Insights

• Analyze how potential clients approach her, the most common questions they ask, and their behavior throughout the funnel.

This data will help us build a clearer picture of her audience and could even lead to the creation of UX personas.

I believe by gathering these insights, we’ll not only improve the sales experience but also the overall customer journey.

This was just my first time doing it and only our first meeting. Hopefully, this will have a meaningful impact on her business.

There are way more to come so if you find it interesting, join the journey and until the next update :)