How to present a concept your client understands the first time
Jeroen van Ling, 3 October 2026, 3 minutes to read
A client who understands your concept says yes sooner. The order of your presentation helps most with that. This structure works for one living room and for a whole house.
Start with the brief
Open with what the client told you at the home visit, in the client's own words. "More calm in the living room", or "a kitchen where the four of us can sit at the table". Add three goals at most. Then the client knows on every slide why it is there.
Add a photo of the room as it is now. The difference between now and later makes your proposal concrete. Which photos you need for this is in Which photos do you take at the first home visit?
One room per chapter
A client thinks in rooms. Give each room its own chapter, always in the same order: mood, colour and material, products, floor plan. After the first room the client knows what comes next, and pays attention to the content. Whether the moodboard or the floor plan goes first depends on the job. That is the topic of Moodboard or floor plan: which do you show first?
Keep each slide to one message. Five products on a slide read more calmly than twelve. If you have more, make a second slide with its own title, such as "Lighting" or "Textiles".
In Softmint each room is a chapter, with the slides already in this order. How to start is in Making your first presentation.
Budget last
Show the total only after all the rooms. If the client sees the amount before the mood of the room is clear, the rest of the conversation is about money. After all the rooms, the client sees the total as the price of one plan.
Show the budget for each room with the total below it. If a room costs more than agreed, name the difference yourself, in one sentence. How to say it is in Talking about budget without an awkward silence. Whether you also show the price of each product is a separate choice: Showing prices in a concept: yes or no?
End with the next step
The last slide says what happens now. What does the client do, what do you do, and when? For example: "You choose one of the two sofas before 15 October. After that we order the samples." A client who knows the next step does not have to call to ask for it.
A client often reads the concept again after the meeting, on the phone and with a partner. It has to make sense without you there to explain it. With Softmint you send a link that scrolls on the phone, and the client says yes, maybe or no to each product. How to work through those responses is in Working through your client's responses.
