I don't work in design. I do a combination of software development (and often get UI design input from my colleagues) and sys and network administration, but w

I don't work in design. I do a combination of software development (and often get UI design input from my colleagues) and sys and network administration, but while I'm not good at handling situations like this, the owner of our company is exceptionally good at it, and I've taken notes as to how he deals with. He always seems to be in absolute control of the conversation. If somebody wants something done, he'll always be totally honest with them, in a very direct way. So, if someone says, "Instead of buying recommended UTM, I'd like to just use free Antivirus program that's not fit for business use", he doesn't let it just go, he'll say something like, "That isn't a complete solution and it's going to end up costing you in malware removal time and headaches. You really should just use this product as it will save you money and time in the long run. I can get you a quote on it before the day is over." He totally owns the conversation and directs and redirects it to a central point. In this case, that point is 'Free AV is not a good solution for businesses that have hardware in house. You need a UTM of some kind." It's never, 'I recommend..." or "I think you should...", it's always, "This is how it is in the real world. You aren't hiring me to softball in suggestions, you are hiring me to be an expert." He addresses their motivations, in this case, cost and benefit of a proper solution. For design, I'd imagine it'd be very similiar. Something on the lines of, "Comic Sans is an unprofessional font. It does the face of your company a huge disservice and should be avoided." I honestly suck at it and I'm trying to get better and owning and directing conversations with customers -- The advice he gives me is go into a conversation with a purpose and a direction. Redirect the conversation to the original purpose when you need to ("We can talk about other thing, but first, I really want to get this product/website/solution in your hands before we address that. What do we need to do to make that happen."), and finally, slow the conversation down enough to really hear what they are saying and understand their motivations and then respond accordingly. It's really easy to let a conversation run away from you and you end up following a mental script instead of actually responding to a customer.