Have you ever looked back on your work with a client and said to yourself, “If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t pitch their business”?

You’re certainly not alone. The reasons vary, but typically include: late payments, non-ideal client profile (unable to apply learnings to other clients), undue stress, over-invested resources, or you are barely breaking-even on the work. I’m sure you are reading this and shaking your head — perhaps even thinking of a few more you could add to the list.

In many cases, these clients were added to your roster because you needed the business. But boy, do you wish you could go back in time and tell them you’re not a good fit. Your innate desire to make things work usually won’t let you fire a client. Although it’s all water under the bridge today, it’s important to take preventive steps to filter prospective clients in the future.

Prospect Qualification Checklist

Experience has proven the benefit of having a prospect qualification checklist — one that stops you from chasing every opportunity that comes across your desk. When your agency isn’t busy, you’ll often find yourself wasting resources on opportunities that aren’t a good fit. But when you are busy, you might pass up opportunities that are a great fit. This checklist will help eliminate the confusion, and help you decide which opportunities are a strategic fit to grow your agency.

Question 1. Does this opportunity align with our expertise?

If the opportunity does not align with your expertise, then simply offer a referral to someone in your network. You generally want to expand your portfolio of services with current clients. Active clients have seen the quality of your work, and will generally give you more leeway as you expand into new services (AKA learning on their dime). Trying to work with a new client on something where your expertise is limited is a risky venture.

Question 2. Do we have a sense of timing and budget?

You want to determine whether the timing and budget is realistic. Far too often, clients will show up at your doorstep and need everything done yesterday. Although you can usually mitigate the risks of an abbreviated timeline with a healthy budget, you want to have a realistic understand of timing and budget prior to investing agency resources on a pitch.

Question 3. Does winning this business help us grow strategically?

Each client you work with should be an investment in your expertise. Client work is practice — and that practice is helping you become more elite in your field. When you take work that deviates from your practice, you are still making money; but your expertise is not growing. Think about the type of agency you said you wanted to become in your last planning session. Does this work help you down the path toward becoming that agency?

Question 4. Do we see any red flags? Do we need the work enough to ignore these red flags?

When talking about the opportunity with your team, have you started off a sentence with “I’m a little concerned about…” or “I’m nervous about…”? Those are red flags. You see them. But the question you must answer is this: do you need the work enough to ignore those red flags? Here’s the reality — sometimes, you simply need the work to ensure you can make payroll or to give yourself a cash cushion.

Question 5. Why are they looking to hire a new agency now?

Determine the urgent, important aspects of the pitch that must be solved now. Find out whether they recently ended a relationship with another agency, and why. Have them articulate what problem/challenge they want you to solve. It’s crucial to understand whether this is a new challenge or understand the roadblocks they’ve experienced in the past trying to solve this challenge.

Question 6. How will they measure the success of our work together?

This factor is your North Star: it determines why you will work together. You must know whether or not you can impact success metrics; because if you can’t, then you are setting yourself up for failure. For instance, your client might measure the success of your work based on sales. The challenge is that there are so many other factors that influence a sale in addition to marketing. You don’t want to be on the hook for something you cannot reasonably influence or impact.

Question 7. Is this client going to pay their bills in a timely manner?

It’s happened to all of us. A client needs something yesterday, so we rush to get working on their project. We go through our unique processes to deliver a solution to their exact specifications. That’s when we notice the payment is late. Then, it’s 30 days late. Then 45 days. The past due keeps getting longer and longer. Sometimes, you are to blame — you don’t get the invoice out on time and you’re not sending reminders. But more often than not, you have a client who is habitually late with paying their bills. Ideally, we would figure out if the client is going to pay their bills on time before we start working with them. One of my favorite solutions to mitigate the risk of late bill payers is to start all client work with a paid discovery session. Upfront, you can gauge the seriousness of a prospect by their willingness to start paid work with you. Other solutions include collecting a deposit before you get started, or taking milestone payments where you can limit your risk.

what if the Prospect is not qualified?

After going through this checklist to qualify a prospect, you will sometimes determine that the potential client is not qualified. In those instances, you should call the prospect and decline the project. It’s usually a good idea to refer them to someone else who you believe can solve their problem. If you think they might be a good prospect in the future, then add them to your email distribution list so you continue to stay top-of-mind for future work.

what if the Prospect is qualified?

This is great! You know what to do next. You can go through a discovery session to better scope out the opportunity, or send them a proposal to move forward. Try to secure the bag as soon as possible by requesting a deposit to continue with the project. You want to be in their accounts payable system sooner rather than later.

Key Takeaway

The qualifying questions in this checklist are a good starting point to minimize the chances of wishing you never had a particular client. As you go through this checklist for your next opportunity and the opportunity after that, you’ll begin refining these questions to better fit your agency. It’s an iterative process — but ultimately, it will help you focus your energy on high value opportunities.