Tire Kicker or True Believer: Why a Briefing Questionnaire is my first step in vetting leads
I was terrified of my first lead
Who was your first proper lead? I’m not talking about your cousin’s reno or your school mate’s café fitout. I’m talking about someone you didn’t know reaching out asking for a quote?
Mine was a phonecall from “John” I answered while walking around Bunnings. I was like a deer in the headlights – I couldn’t have been more unprepared.
At the end of a five minute conversation all I knew was John lived in a neighboring suburb, wanted to do a small reno and had gotten my details from a facebook renovation group. Oh, and that I’d agreed to go around there the next day and meet John and his wife. But hell, was I excited. And terrified. And completely unprepared.
I didn’t get the job. Some local drafty who could do the project in half the time for the half the cost was going to bang up some plans for them. Fair enough. We were never meant to be.
I don’t need to tell you that if every potential client engagement goes this way you’re going to waste a lot of time and effort for not many results. This is probably fine early on, as having face to face conversations explaining your services gives you some invaluable experience and insight into what clients really want. However, its not a long term strategy when you have a practice to run. Over time, you want to quickly and professionally find out if the lead is a tire kicker or a true believer. And a Briefing Questionnaire is the quickest, most useful way I’ve found of doing that.
Why I implemented a Briefing Questionnaire
I tried a few things early on to quickly find out if the lead was a good fit. I wrote out some scripts of things to say, points to remember and a list of questions to ask (tell me about your project, what’s your budget etc.).
However, I often found I didn’t keep a good record of their project, I didn’t get to the heart of their priorities and I was none the wiser as to how serious they were.
Implementing a Briefing Questionnaire helped to solve this.
It saves you time by weeding out bad fits
Flicking through a lead’s responses to the briefing questionnaire gives you a clear indication of whether this project feels like a good fit.
Do they share your values?
Do they care about the quality of your work more than your fees?
Do they have a realistic budget for the work they’re doing?
If you structure your questionnaire well, a quick skim through the results will tell you more than a thirty minute conversation would have.
It keeps momentum going
Think about the mindset of a prospect just before they pick up the phone to call you. They have probably been mulling on this project for ages. They’re excited to be finally making progress. They’re really eager to move on to the next step. But you’ve got deadlines, other leads to meet with and things popping up on site so it takes you an age to return their phone call or email. By directing them to your briefing questionnaire you give them a concrete next step and keep the momentum going.
It tests if they’re really serious
Flicking you an email doesn’t take a whole lot of effort and giving you a quick call doesn’t prove their willing to make much of a commitment. But asking a lead to set aside some time and and complete the questionnaire is a small test of how they value their project and your time. If they respond within a couple of days you know they take their project seriously. If it takes a month and a few prompts, its an indication that the project may not be a real priority, and they might not be serious about moving forward.
It prepares you for the first phone call
In my experience the first discussion with a lead is a subtle dance where you’re both sounding each other out to see if this is worth your time and their money. You’re trying to find out who is on the other end of that line.
If they are the dream client you want to take your time with them, give a great first impression and be knowledgeable and helpful. If they’re not a good fit, to put it bluntly - you want to point them in the direction of someone who is a better fit and then get off the phone and back to your real work.
The Briefing Questionnaire takes the mystery out of the conversation. You know what they’re looking for in this project and why they want to work with an architect, and where their project priorities are. Because you’re treating them as a good lead, you’ve set aside a few minutes researching their area and know something about the particular planning requirements or the history of the houses in that area (how much useful advice you want to give away for free is another discussion for another time).
Its enjoyable for clients (or at least, that’s what they tell me)
It’s the first step to writing their brief. They’ve been dreaming of this project for years. If it’s a renovation they’ve probably been living in a house that’s been bugging them for years and they’re finally letting it all out to someone who can help them fix it. That’s a cathartic experience.
It's a good record of your leads
If you’re tracking your leads (and you should be, read here) having all your responses in one place is a great way to go back over and see trends etc. Also it gives you a record of their project details and priorities so you can discuss that in more detail on the phone call if you decide to proceed.
How to make a Briefing Questionnaire and what to ask
Sign up for an online survey creator. I use Typeform, but you could try Surveymonkey or Jotform.
You can ask anything you like that suits your practice, but here are my questions if you want to copy and paste.
By the way, I do almost entirely renovations, so you might need to change the some of these questions if you work in different sectors or with new houses.
My Questions
“Hi, I'm from Architects. I'm keen to hear more about your project so I've put this short questionnaire together.
It shouldn't take more than ten minutes and lots of clients have told me that it helped them to think about their project more clearly.
It's also great way for me to get an initial impression of what you've got in mind.
But don't worry, if we choose to work together, there will be lots of time to talk this over and explore your brief in much more detail.”
What are your contact details (I take your privacy seriously, these are for our internal records only)”
“Tell me what you've got in mind for your project”
“What do you like about your house”
“What bothers you about your house”
“Even at this early stage, its good to think about what’s most important to you in your project. I’m going to give you 10 points to spread over the following five areas of your brief:
Vibe
Function
Affordable design
Project timeframe
Sustainability, low carbon use
“It's really important to me that the project has a great vibe. (how many of your ten points do you spend)”
“It's really important to me that the design functions well. (how many of your ten points do you spend)”
“I’m looking to stretch my dollar further in this project. (how many of your ten points do you spend)”
“I really want to get moving with this project (how many of your ten points do you spend)”
“A house with low energy use, passive solar and sustainable materials is really important to me (how many of your ten points do you spend)”
“Do you have any specific sustainability goals for this project?”
“Why do you want to work with an architect on this project?”
“How did you find out about us at Architects?”
“Do you have any questions for me?”
“Anything I've missed that you want to add?
That’s it.
At the end I ask them to manually email me too to let me know that they’ve contacted me. For some weird reason Typeform doesn’t always do a good job of this and I don’t want to miss a new survey coming in.
I don’t ask them directly about their budget, I think that’s better managed over the phone but you can add something in about that here if you like too.
Final Thoughts
A Briefing Questionnaire is a simple and effective way to start your conversation with a lead. It helps you to:
understand if the lead is a good fit
prepare you for your first conversation with them
test if they’re serious about the project
capture their details for future conversations