The first conversation.

The first conversation with a new client is not a sales call. It is a diagnosis. The studio is not trying to convince; the client is not trying to be sold to. Both are trying to find out, in the space of forty-five minutes, whether the work that wants to be made is the work the other can make.

Underneath the brief is a reason the client is calling now, this month, instead of three months ago. The studio listens for that reason. It is rarely in the first paragraph the client speaks. It usually arrives in the third or fourth.

Silence is part of the conversation. Most calls fill silence the moment it appears, because silence is read as awkwardness. Here, silence is read as thinking. After ten seconds, the client almost always adds the sentence the first sentence was hiding. That sentence is usually the brief.