LKM graphic has been in business for almost 5 years. The company employees 17 fulltime employees in its graphic design department, a part time administrative assistant, 3 interns from Old University graphics art program. During a typical week, LKM prints 300,000 to 400,000 documents for businesses in the surrounding Tidewater metropolitan area; most clients have 15 or fewer employees, although there are two active and ongoing government contracts with the Naval Operations Base, which is nearby. The owner of LKM, Linda McLaroy, hired you 3 years ago when you graduated from the graphic arts program. You are now one of the senior graphics accounts managers with the company and supervise 4 other team members.
Your role

As a quality control measure, each month you are required to visit the clients assigned to your region. During those visits, you are to answer questions, deliver completed orders, verify customer satisfaction, collect feedback data and look for new orders. On a recent visit to Brickman Bakery, you met the new office manager, Sylvia Greco. You had been told by a friend who works at Brickman that Sylvia is considering closing her account at LKM Graphics and moving it to a competitor. Before joining Brickman's last month, she had been employed by another organization in the area and had developed a strong relationship with your competitor. Since she is comfortable with the competitors operation and has friends there, she wants to maintain the relationship. You've also heard through the grapevine that Sylvia prefers to work with your competitors account representative.

Questions

1. Since you don't have a relationship with Sylvia, what will you do to get off to a solid start during your visit?

2. How should you approach Sylvia verbally and nonverbally?

3. What strategies can you use to find out where you and LKM stand in Sylvia's mind?