I sold before I make it..!
The more I work with clients, the more I realize something important: you should never build a full-fledged system before getting paid. There are two big reasons for this: 1. You don’t actually know what they need yet. 2. What clients say they want and what they actually want often aren’t the same. That’s why I’ve changed my approach. Now, I sell the idea first. I have polished, full-featured "default package" ready to show so clients understand the end vision. But when they ask for a Proof of Concept, I build the smallest functional version possible and share that first. If they give the thumbs-up, then I move forward with the full system. This approach has saved me a massive amount of time and let me gather real, validated business use cases without building things that never get used.