Everything you need to know about lead inquiry forms & easier Discovery Calls
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“Is just 1, 20-30min Discovery Call enough to accurately quote a project for a client?”
That’s a question I've been hearing a lot lately! Because some people are meeting 2+ times with potential clients before nailing this down.
As for me? Yes. I only need one meeting for the type of work I do.
While my answer is yes, it hasn’t always been that easy but that’s what I’ve always done. And to be perfectly honest with you, a lot of this is driven by instincts at this point because I've done it so many times!
With practice, I know what details to watch out for, and what the red flags typically are.
Today, I’ll share a few tips I’ve learned through experience to help you make that 20 to 30-minute call count so that hopefully you won't have to have multiple discovery calls before you can send the proposal!
Because, the more steps you put in the process between their initial inquiry & booking a project with you, it’s less likely they're going to follow through because we lose excitement about the purchase & start to overanalyze things while we wait (wait, is that just me?? 😂). So the easier you can make it, the more likely they're actually going to do it.
Before I dive into today’s tips though, if we haven't met before, my name is Katelyn. I run Launch The Damn Thing!®. I am a Squarespace web designer and educator and before that, I was a graphic designer doing more print & branding work. I’ve been in the digital design industry since 2006, and my joy is to share that experience & know-how with you!
Find a mentor you trust & can learn from
If you're a newer entrepreneur, I'm guessing one of your first questions is “how the hell did this chick learn all this shit?” (ie: everything I share with you, anywhere) The short answer? TIME & EXPERIENCE.
The long answer? I learned from people who were one (or more) steps ahead of me!
That was always my question for my mentors too, and now I’m finding myself in their position, which –not gonna lie– feels a bit surreal. I used to wonder “How do they know all of this?” Especially when I’d come across somebody younger than me, but way further along, and seemingly way more successful too.
Two Tips (for continuing education)
❶ One of my favorite quotes is from the entrepreneur-famous Jenna Kutcher, “Don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle.”
Simple, succinct, and so true. The worst thing you can do is to look up to someone and put them on a pedestal that feels so high up that you’ll never reach it too. Usually, they started at a different time than you, with different circumstances, a different drive, and even different luck, with different mentors. Your beginnings might sound the same, but the path between that & success is different for everyone so don’t beat yourself up with comparisonitis!
❷ Look, we are not born experts right out of the womb and we don’t become an expert any time after that, overnight.
I did not learn any of this in college. In my design program, I learned how to use design software, create conceptual & strategic designs, the best practices, design elements, design principles, consumer behaviors, etc. What I did NOT learn was how to run a business by myself and/or for myself. I did not learn how to market my business, write copy that converts, or where to find contracts, edit, send, and sign them with clients, quote projects, manage clients during a project, etc. I didn't know any of that!
I figured it all out from experts, or mentors that I’ve looked up to and one of those people was Paige Brunton, among others like Jenna Kutcher, Nesha Woolery, Jamie Starcevich, Abagail and Emylee from Boss Project, Elizabeth McCravy, James Wedmore, and more.
Paige’s Square Secrets Business® course was the first course I took that taught me how to start and run a web design business, and I still use so much of what I learned in that course. In the next few posts, I'll be sharing some of what I learned and adapted from her courses, that are important for you to know so you can get the ball rolling and eventually take a course like that to learn more in-depth information from the source.
Today, I'm covering lead inquiry forms and processes, and the follow-up tips for better discovery calls, but in the next few posts in this series, I'm going to go through my two-week design process, and what that looks like. I got the timeline straight from Paige’s courses, but I’ll share how I've adapted it for my business, and how it works best for me.
So stay tuned, and subscribe to make sure ya won’t miss those posts & videos!
Simplify Your Client Inquiry Form, strategically!
First of all, to collect leads (ie: potential clients) you need an inquiry form, ––but you need a good one.
Most people struggle with what questions to ask on it though, because what’s “enough” vs “too much?” And which questions will actually help vet people or weed through the inquiries to pick out the people that we want to work with the most?
I get it! It's a lot of pressure and you're a little bit worried that if you ask too many questions, they won't fill it out, but if you don't ask enough questions, you won't have enough information to know whether or not they're going to be a good client.
Lemme just stop you right there!
Max out at seven to ten questions on your inquiry form. Your client does not want to fill out the equivalent of a job application to work with a service provider. They just don't. So you don't need more than that, in most cases. You can get it on the discovery call, or later in the process.
These are the types of questions that I ask on my own lead inquiry form.
Name & Email
REQUIRED FIELDS
The first question asks for basics: first & last name.
The second question asks for their email address because without that we can’t respond to them (manually or automatically).
Business type
REQUIRED FIELD
The third question should ask whether or not they have a product-based business, or a service-based business. If you don’t have a preference, you could maybe skip this one I guess, but it’s still really good to know if you want to have an idea of which website builder platform will be the best fit and maybe that’s not the one you’re most comfortable in.
I prefer working with service-based businesses with 2-5 people or less in the business, so I ask that as a way to filter inquiries.
Product-based businesses mean the majority of their revenue is earned through the sales of products, and they’ll have inventory to manage, shipping to set up, and international taxes to deal with, ––those kinds of things do not bring me joy. 😂
Not only that, but product-based businesses have more pressure to sell. In most cases, but not all, they have to sell a lot of lower-cost products to generate the same revenue that a service-based business could make from just one client. The pressure is on us to create a website that sells, –and sells fast, because that’s the expectation –however inaccurate.
Sales do not come from just having a website; there’s a lot more to it than that, including marketing efforts so people know the website exists!
Read/Watch these posts next:
Pick a service
REQUIRED FIELD
The fourth question I ask is to pick which of my available services they’re most interested in. For me, that’s a custom website, a design day (or a VIP day), coaching, or a guest/speaking opportunity.
But before you make this list & move on, I have a few tips that will help, but buckle up buttercup, because what I say next is going to feel scary!
If you have a problem with getting qualified leads ––ie, ideal clients that have the right budget–– put price ranges (or starting prices) next to the service options you list here. That way, when a potential client fills it out, the option they picked is also choosing & telling you their budget. When you get on the call with them later, you’ll be able to skip the awkwardness during pricing conversation, because they literally couldn’t miss seeing the price when they submitted the form.
This helps clean up your calendar by weeding out the people who can’t pay the price you’re asking, and it may also help weed out price hagglers or potential red-flag clients.
And yes, I realize that this will feel scary to do, at first. But ––and I mean this in the kindest way possible–– get over yourself. 😂 No one cares about these details as much as we do, I promise.
Plus, it’s not really any different than buying literally any product where the price is listed before they checkout. You’re doing both of you A FAVOR by communicating this upfront so that neither of you wastes time meeting & discussing a project that won’t happen due to budget concerns.
The one caveat I will add here is that you have to make a note to keep this field updated in Dubsado or Squarespace, –wherever your form lives– every time you change your prices. So if you're changing your prices a lot, make sure you create a calendar reminder so you don’t forget to update prices everywhere you show them.
Project details
REQUIRED FIELD
The fifth question I ask is to share project details. What’s the problem they want your help to solve? Give them a big text area to write it down & word vomit whatever they think they need to tell you about their potential project.
In the placeholder text (that shows in the field before they type into it) encourage them to share specifics that you want to know, like: what’s working or not working on their website?
You can and should ask for more details in the discovery call, but giving them a place to share right away will help you make a judgment call on whether you can or want to take this project.
How did they find you?
REQUIRED FIELD
The sixth question I ask ––and this is extremely important–– where or how did they find your website?
The reason this is so important is that if your inquirers consistently find you on Google, or they consistently find you on Instagram, you know where to focus (or refocus) your marketing efforts.
It can even help you adjust if the responses you get are unexpected & don’t match up with what your intentions had been. For example, if everyone says they find you on LinkedIn, but you want to be found on Google, then you know you have to adjust your marketing strategies on both platforms, maybe lightening up on LinkedIn and focusing more on Google and SEO.
This question is how I know 90+ percent of the clients I work with have found me through Google or a specific personal referral because they literally told me, ‘I found you through Kim’ or ‘I found you through this specific Google search.’
So add that question! It’s extremely helpful for you to learn how people are finding you.
Why you?
REQUIRED FIELD
The seventh question asks them to tell you why they want to work with you, specifically.
It’s not to fish for compliments. It’s to see who’s an ideal client because they already really like you as a service provider, and who’s not an ideal client because you could’ve been anyone & they don’t really care who they hire as long as the job gets done.
You can feel the vibe here just as easily as ideal clients felt the vibe from you.
When you read that response, it’ll be easier to decide whether or not you can work with that person because they either told you something that resonates with you, …or it didn’t.
Maybe 80% of the time that answer tells me whether or not I want to (or can) work with that person, and because I encourage my audience & potential clients to be themselves, when they answer this question & their personality shines through in their answer, it’s a ‘hell yes’ for me!
If they told me they want to work with me because I have the right price range and experience, and they’ve reached out to several designers, I’m much less interested, TBH.
There's a reason why this question is required too, even when it's just a general inquiry or a guest opportunity.
My Post-Submit Process for New Leads
Now, what happens after they submit that form? It redirects to a welcome packet page, a discovery page, or whatever you want to call it. Here's what I list on that page.
Thank you message and video
First of all, I have a 2-3 minute ‘Thank You’ video, thanking them for taking the leap and sending me the inquiry in the first place.
It's a happy video, right beside a message that explains what this page is there for. The last half of the video is literally bloopers because that's my personality and my business style, right? It's all based on having fun! This is the way that I prove it; that I’m a happy-go-lucky person and I will be fun to work with. And here is me literally screwing up and laughing at myself because of it.
Set expectations
After that, I tell them what happens next. I have an easy-to-read brief synopsis of Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3, breaking down the project into its most basic parts.
Every service provider is different and has different processes, so this section can help your potential leads by alleviating any potential concerns about obligations and teaching them what happens next if they decide to work with you.
Pricing & project calendar
In the next section, I link back to my pricing details on my services page, so they can double-check the pricing and what’s included for each package.
I also have a link to my project calendar so they can see what my current availability is. This Project Calendar is a ‘view’ of a list in ClickUp* with a public link to just that view.
How do I create the calendar?
I plan out my year, by deciding how many projects I want to be able to take that year, and space them out on the calendar, adding time in between to manage my own business. Each ‘project’ that shows on the calendar is a ‘task’ in ClickUp* with Start Dates & Due Dates so the task will appear on the calendar for the full amount of days each project will take. I have custom fields to display the status of each project (’task’) that will show in the public view, so potential clients can see which spots are booked or available. On the list view (not public) in the Project Calendar, each project (’task’) also has a numeric value, calculated at the bottom so I will always know my goal revenue for the year if I can fill each spot.
Display favorite work
In this section, I share screenshots of home pages from some of my most recent or favorite work, that link to my portfolio case study pages to show ‘what I can do’ without asking them to leave this page. Remember, this is a ‘secret’ page that they may have trouble getting back to if they leave it midway through scrolling through the info and haven’t finished getting the info they’d wanted.
FAQs
Next, I have a bunch of commonly asked questions, so they can further self-qualify or disqualify themselves, get immediate answers to questions they might have but aren’t sure when or if they should ask.
This is as much for me as it is for them, so they don't actually have to ask me and so I don't actually have to say it for the 10,000th time, right?
Scheduler
The last piece is to share a link to your scheduler or to embed your scheduler. Either way, make sure it only shows the Discovery Call appointment type so they can decide whether to move forward or not without immediate pressure and without getting confused about which appointment type to book if they want to move forward. (I have a lot of appointment types these days!)
If you use a scheduler like Calendly or Acuity, there are built-in automations for each appointment type. I have several that apply to most of my appointments, which do things like:
send an automated confirmation of their appointment details immediately after they book, with options to reschedule or cancel on their own
send an automated reminder email 24 hours before the appointment, with options to reschedule or cancel on their own, or reconfirm that they will be attending
1 hour before,
send an automated email with time, date, and location details
send an automated text reminder for the appointment, and remind them that details have also been emailed (too long to add to a text) again
30 minutes after the appointment has ended, send an automated email thanking them for their time & letting them know I enjoyed our chat.
This has all but solved any no-show problems I’ve had in the past, and you wouldn’t believe how many times people respond to that last ‘thank you for meeting with me’ email like I’d typed it up and sent it myself. 😃
Autoresponder email
When they submit the form, they get redirected to this welcome packet page I just went over, but they also get an autoresponder email at the same time, so they get both.
They'll be immediately redirected from the form to the welcome packet page on my website (or a ‘questionnaire’ with no questions –just information– in Dubsado*, which is easier to keep ‘secret’), and in the meantime, they're also getting an automated email response that
The email thanks them for reaching out, tells them my typical response time and shares a link back to that welcome packet page in case they want to review it again.
This email also has the link to my scheduler so they can book the Discovery Call from the email or the welcome page.
3 Follow-ups
After that, my workflow will send up to three follow-up emails, because sometimes people get busy & don’t realize how much time has passed. It’s not always that they decided they don’t want to work with us –so don’t assume anything!
The caveat for me, is that because my scheduler is in Calendly but my form is in Dubsado* and the two don't necessarily talk to each other, the automated follow-ups are part of a workflow where each follow-up email requires my approval to send it.
Dubsado* has Workflow automation approvals, so that the email template is already pre-populated, and the approval process will email me when I have something to approve. This gives me the chance to edit the email template per person if I want, and to decide whether I even send one. To approve these emails, I just log in, go to the Workflows tab of their project, and select “Approve” (and sometimes also “Force Now” if needed), and only then will it send the follow-up.
That's how I stay on top of the automated responses and follow-ups!
You NEED to follow up. If you don't ask AND it's not top of mind for them, because (like us) they have 5,001 things they’re juggling at the same time, they may still come back to you when they're ready, but maybe that's six months from now, two years from now, or when you’ve completely booked solid and you literally can’t add them to your calendar.
You never know!
Tips for better Discovery Calls
So that's my lead inquiry form process. After all of that, and they've booked their discovery call, on the day of the call I pull up their inquiry form & read over it again to refresh my memory. If they shared their website, I’ll look at that too & make note of anything that stands out (good or fixable).
I’ll also get or open something to take notes during the call because I don’t record these and don’t want to be looking for a pen & paper or an app to write down something while they’re talking; it looks like we’re not listening if we appear distracted.
Initial meet & greet
On the call, I welcome them & say hi. We have a meet and greet with small talk for five-ish minutes, and then I'll ask them to talk about their business & what they’re hoping they can get from working with me.
Listen
From this point on, I'm there to LISTEN and guide the conversation if it needs to swing back on course. Guided questions I typically ask are:
Tell me what you're looking for.
Tell me about your business.
Tell me about your website (if you already have one)
What's not working? What do you hate about it?
What is working? What do you love about it?
What would you like your website to do?
And I just sit back and listen.
I know that seems crazy, or too easy, but that’s my best tip: let them do most of the talking!
What am I listening for?
things that intrigue me about their project or their dreams
talk about their business processes
what they currently are and if they could be simplified, streamlined, or more efficient
things I know their website could do to help alleviate some of the admin work
how many pages it sounds like their website could be
what platform they currently are on, and if they want to move to Squarespace or not (so that I can say, ‘I specialize in Squarespace specifically, and I don't take projects in other platforms at this time,’ for example)
what features their website might already have, or don’t have & need
mention their budget
mention things they've tried before (like a DIY website & now they know it's time to hire)
There are a lot of things I can latch on to, to pivot the conversation if needed, but ultimately, I am just listening to what they are telling me, absorbing that information, and evaluating what it all means as a whole so I can give them a quote on the call.
Give them a rough estimate, LIVE
I know that just reading that sentence was probably scary ––and to be perfectly honest, early on in my business I was always nervous to do this ‘live’ on a call too, but it really is helpful for gauging their responses and negotiating on the call.
For example, if you give them a quote of $5,000 for a redesign and their eyebrows go way up reaching their hairline, you can giggle and say, ‘it seems like you weren’t expecting that rate, so let’s talk about what we can remove from the deliverables that you don’t need right now and find an option that works with your budget a bit better.’
Whereas, if you skip the pricing conversation on the call and you just send them a proposal for a $5,000 project with no alternatives, they may just walk away assuming that was the only available option.
You could add alternatives to the proposal, but people tend to cherry-pick based on price when the budget is driving their decision, and that may end up forcing their hand to choose an option that really isn’t the best choice for them or for you.
Having the conversation in person on the call is –while maybe a bit scary– the best for both parties, so you can negotiate deliverables and arrive at an agreeable rate BEFORE you ever send the proposal!
Because I do this, I have a near 100% close-rate, because we discuss it on the call together, so they’re not surprised by anything they see in the proposal, and it’s an easy “YES!”
In fact, two of my recent clients LITERALLY told me this during the booking process,
“Thanks Katelyn! You’ve got everything so organized, you made it easy to say yes to everything! I so appreciate all of the boundaries you have in place and stating them clearly - I’m taking notes for my business!”
“BTW: the client experience has been chef’s kiss incredible so far. Your client journey is so thought out ❤️”
Once they are done explaining things, then I can ask them specific questions like:
ballpark, can you give me a rough figure on how many pages you think you currently have?
how many collections will they need? (blog, podcast, video gallery, portfolio, case studies, etc)
is there anything specific they know they want? (design style, features, etc)
I know this all sounds fairly vague, but it’s always a little different from person to person, so I’ll give you an example.
EXAMPLE:
Recently, I worked with a client who was on WordPress. She actually had two separate websites, but when she reached out to me she hadn't specified that. So when we got on the discovery call, we had a 20-30 minute chat where she told me that she had a preexisting website on WordPress for her law practice that she didn’t love and had trouble editing/updating. During that conversation, she shared that she actually had another website for blog content and wondered if they could be merged during this process.
So on the call, I pulled up her second website, took a look at it, and I asked her how many posts she thought it had, what kind of content was in most of those posts, was it meant to be the same company producing the content for both sites, etc.
In my experience, I was able to tell her confidently that yes, we could merge them and save her a lot of money in annual hosting she wouldn’t need to pay for on Squarespace. I was pretty confident it would be relatively simple to do through the import/export process with WordPress and Squarespace, so I gave her a quote on the call that I felt comfortable with and then I sent her the proposal after the call with that same estimate.
Now that the project has launched, even in hindsight, everything went really smoothly. I didn't need to charge her extra because the quote I gave her did cover everything we did during the project and there were no hiccups!
That had been a big redesign (redesigns are my favorite!), with a lot of information to reorganize during the merge, including about 400 blog posts, 52 events, 10 testimonials, 40+ FAQs, 100+ individual resources to link and organize, and 20 to 30 pages total.
Yes, that's my instinct kicking in after so many years! Just know that I’m not perfect, and I learned how to do with too! So –like me– and with time, experience, AND PRACTICE, you will be able to get on a call, not need an itinerary to follow, but just have a loose plan to listen & guide the conversation wherever each one needs to go.
You will get there, I promise. It just takes some time and practice. It will need some trial and error while you learn how to do this in a way that works best for you, but you WILL get there!
If you need a little bit of a push, check out this post on Imposter Syndrome next, because imposter syndrome is real –but we need to STOP calling it “imposter” syndrome & think about it a different way.
final thoughts
You can learn this! These tips I’ve shared today are not things I’m just inherently good at, naturally. It just takes practice, but you gotta start somewhere!
I hope that gives you an idea of the start of my whole client process before a client ever actually becomes a client.
If you want more information along that line, like what it looks like to onboard a client, I have a whole video on onboarding & offboarding clients with Dubsado, so go ahead and dig into that too while you wait!
