Call customer, discuss goals, capture in bid.

Have specific terms, not broad generalizations. Get customer to focus, and then focus some more, and to be realistic.

Look at search logs to see current activity

Look at current state of medata and other applied SEO

Run searches in desired terms, see who wins.

Look at what they did to win.

Use wordtracker or Googles Keyword Research Tool or other means to see which of the search goals are worth an effort.

• Don't invest effort in something nobody searches for.
   
• Don't invest effort in a term they are bound to win anyway such as those with their name. This page, for example, would win a search for 'hotdoodlefunnyterm' because there just are not many references anywhere to this term.
  

Backup the site, then copy the site from its backup.