Have you (or one of your agency’s salespeople) wasted time on a prospect who turned out to be a terrible fit? Fix that common problem by asking clients to complete a sales pre-qualification survey before you get on the phone.
This helps you focus on the right people—and do “fast failure” with those who aren’t.
What kind of results might you see? I recently helped a client overhaul their agency’s sales process. In the first two weeks, their team shortened their initial calls by 33% (from ~45 minutes to ~30 minutes), while boosting their salesperson’s close rate on Paid Discovery.
Let’s look at the questions I ask, how to customize this for your agency, and answers to common questions I hear from agency owners about doing sales pre-qualification surveys.
For a deeper dive, see my extended article on creating a Fast-Fail Sales Process.
[TEMPLATE] Swipe File: The 11 questions I ask
I refer to my survey as the Agency Exit Profile. With an eye toward exit-readiness and executive coaching, here’s what I ask:
- What’s your contact info?
- Current situation: Why are you seeking exit-focused agency advice at this time?
- Tell me about your agency’s background and positioning. What led to starting (or joining) the agency, and who’s your ideal client? If you’re actively considering a future exit, what do you think will make your agency attractive to a buyer?
- Do you see your agency as primarily a Lifestyle business (keep running it indefinitely) or an Equity business (position it for acquisition or other exit)?
- What are your current revenue and net profit margins? Do you have a specific exit in mind? If you have a number, timeline, or dream scenario—even if it feels ambitious—please share.
- Tell me about your team. What are the key roles today, and are there any gaps you think could affect a successful exit? Do you have any co-owners, investors, or other business partners?
- Picture yourself three years from now. In an ideal world, what’s different for you personally (even if you hope to exit sooner or later than three years)? What do you want to change, and what do you want to preserve?
- If you’ve worked with a paid advisor before, what worked well and what didn’t? What would you want to do differently as you prepare for an exit
- Where are you in your selection process for exit-focused advisory? (Options: I’m in the early stages of exploring options, I want help in the next 1–3 months, I need help right now)
- Obligatory marketing question: How did you hear about Karl Sakas and Sakas & Company?
- Is there anything else you’d like to share about your agency or exit goals?
Most are “required” questions. Be sure to customize the list to your agency’s situation. See below for my advice on how to handle the dreaded budget question.
[Template] How to introduce your sales pre-qualification survey
Once someone reaches out via email or a contact form, my team will reply like this:
SUBJECT: Helping you & <AgencyName>
Hi <TheirName>,
Thanks for reaching out! From what you described, it sounds like we’re a fit—<BriefSummary>.
As a next step, please take 20-30 minutes to share about your goals. This will help you save time later. Based on that, Karl and I will review your responses, to recommend next steps—e.g., doing an exploratory call or pointing you elsewhere if we’re not the right match for you.
<Karl’s colleague>
As you can see, we frame the pre-qualification survey as part of a process. I also demonstrate how they benefit from doing the survey.
Should you ask about their budget?
Yes—but don’t be obnoxious. Instead of fishing with “What’s your budget?,” give them an idea of what to expect. For instance, are you doing $10,000 engagements, $100,000 engagements, or $1,000,000 engagements?
To position yourself as a strategic agency (a “thinker” instead of a “doer”), make a soft ask. Cite your minimum level of engagement, and ask if they’ve created a budget yet. For instance:
“Have you created a budget yet for this work? As a heads up, our clients typically invest a minimum of $200,000 a year. Our initial audit is $25,000, and we can recommend your Phase 2 budget after that.”
Pro tip: If they haven’t created a budget yet, do not do a sales call—and definitely don’t create a proposal. When someone’s at the very beginning of their selection process, share your minimum level of engagement and share a wide budget range:
“Solving that kind of problem tends to run $60,000 to $400,000. I’m glad to discuss further once you’ve confirmed your budget internally.”
If you really want to insist on knowing numbers up front, you should have a drop-down with budget ranges—but I recommend making the question optional. (Some large clients may not want to disclose their budget yet; if the rest of their answers are highly-engaged, you’ll find out soon enough.)
Send the survey before or after scheduling the sales call?
If you have a high volume of prospects, consider asking people to complete the survey before scheduling them. That way, you can turn-away people who are a poor fit, instead of taking up space on your schedule with a call that you’d ultimately pre-exclude.
If you find people in your target industry vertical are reluctant to do the survey, consider sending the survey after scheduling the call. You might also consider shortening the survey to fewer “core” questions. Be sure the survey’s mobile-friendly, especially if your clients tend to be on the run.
If someone’s initial email suggests they’re a strong fit, I’ll do things simultaneously—schedule the call while asking them to complete the survey.
Is there ever a time to skip a pre-qualification survey?
Should you ever skip the sales pre-qualification survey? Probably not, but it depends on the strength of your sales pipeline. If your pipeline is weak—and you’re willing to make compromises because you need cash—you might skip the survey to reduce “friction” in the sales process.
What if someone is referred to you by a current client or a referral partner? Use the pre-qualification survey with them, too—not every referral is a fit. The key is that you frame it as part of your process—most prospective clients like seeing that your agency has a process.
If your prospects tend to call first (instead of emailing your agency to set up a call), your Business Development Representative (BDR) would ask pre-qualification questions by phone.
What if they don’t fill out the survey?
Worried someone won’t fill it out before the call? In my experience, that’s extremely rare—it’s happened just twice in my several years of using the survey. In one case, she’d missed the reminder about the survey. In the other, one of the three partners had started filling it out before he got distracted. (Sound familiar?)
If someone doesn’t fill it out because they think it’s a waste of time, that’s a good thing—they’ve just proven to you that they don’t value you and your process. Congrats—you achieved “fast failure” by not wasting time on a poor-fit prospect!
Don’t do calls with prospects who skip your pre-qualification survey—if they aren’t willing to spend 15-30 minutes on the survey to share about their business, why should your team spend 30 or 45 or 60 minutes on the phone with them?
Applying this at your agency
Ready to create and use a sales pre-qualification survey at your agency? Great! Using my survey as a model, make a list of questions that will help you vet people before the call.
You’ll need to find the right balance on how deep to probe, versus saving key followup questions for the exploratory call. Consider linking the form directly to your marketing automation CRM, to save you a step later.
For a deeper dive, see my extended article on creating a Fast-Fail Sales Process. In short, spend time on the sales prospects who want and need your agency’s help. But don’t let efficiency take over—under the Warmth & Competence model, frame the survey as Warmth for them (you value their time), not Competence for you (you’re in a hurry).
Question: Thinking about your agency’s most recent sales prospect, what do you wish you’d asked before getting on the phone?
