As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.
So I've learned in the past, if a company approaches me and they want something like this, or something like that that I've done and I turn them down, they're going to do it anyhow.
For the future, I would suggest avoiding subjects of too vast a scale. It would be useful to make out a list of fundamental questions on the matter to be dealt with, and discuss only those.