Should You Use Your Web Site to Weed Out Tire-Kickers?

One of my articles posted on FreelanceSwitch last week recommended, essentially, that freelancers use their web sites to filter out bad prospects. Here's what I wrote:

Post a form on your web site that prospects fill out if they want an estimate or proposal. The serious prospects will take the time to fill out your form. Tire-kickers and those shopping for price will not. The form, once filled out, also will give structure to the request, help to focus your potential client and put in one place all (or most) of the information you need to get started preparing a proposal. Beyond that, this structure also gives your prospect a sense of how you work and some of the requirements of working with you. It’s part of your positioning as a professional.

There were lots of comments on this, a few questioning the idea of creating a barrier to entry.
What do you think? (Post your comment here or on FreelanceSwitch.)

Comments

[Laura]

I agree with the idea of weeding out tire-kickers but I've found that it doesn't work with my sales process. What is very successful for me is speaking with people on the phone. It's much easier for me to show my (winning!) personality over the phone than email. So I like to discuss these questions on an initial call. It also gives me time to feel the other person out to see if I want to work with them, which I find difficult to do over email.

As for the hourly rate thing, how do you handle stating the in contract what happens if the work goes beyond scope? I say work past this contract will be billed at XX/hour but actually that always makes me cringe because I'm afraid they are "doing the math" on how many hours the project takes, even though that is not actually how I price projects. How do you handle that part of the contract?

[Jill Anderson]

I love the idea of an estimate form, and I'm in the middle of designing mine right now. I've been so lucky to have a steady flow of business (can you say busy!!!) and it takes precious time away from designing to set up appointments and talk to folks on the phone. I'd rather know they were serious up front and had the budget.

So this leads to a question----I was thinking of having a drop down box with specific budget ranges, instead of allowing them to fill in their own budget. What do you think?

[Ilise Benun]

Excellent comments and questions, Laura and Jill.

For Laura, you can just say, "if project goes beyond scope, we will advise you right away so we can renegotiate." I think that gives you the most latitude because each situation will be different and you will probably need to have a conversation about it anyway.

For Jill, I do like the idea of multiple choice budget ranges. In face, one of my clients has that on his site. You can link to it from here: http://www.primelight.net/contact.html

[Jasmine Holmes]

I really like the budget range idea for the form. I am planning on adding one to my site and will absolutely incorporate that into it. I have started using ranges when talking to clients about budget rather than trying to get a concrete number. I find it is much easier to get a realistic answer to the question without putting the client on the spot.

I have also started recommending this approach to many of my clients with websites that promote the service (non-creative) businesses. The form also acts as a great measuring device as to how much of your website traffic you are converting to actual prospects. It really answers the question "What does my website do for me."

[Ilise Benun]

Here's one more form with a multiple choice budget on the Backpocket Copywriter's web site:
http://www.backpocketcopywriter.com/contact.htm