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Prospective Client Discovery & Fit Questionnaire

A pre-proposal intake for consultants and agencies that captures a prospect's goals, current situation, budget range, timeline, and decision process before the first call. An AI follow-up digs past the polished pitch to find out what's actually broken, what's already been tried, and what a real win would look like — so you can scope and price with far less guesswork.

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Sample questions

A preview of what’s in the template. Every question is editable before you launch.

12 questions · ~7 min
Q01
Message

Thanks for considering us! This short questionnaire (about 5 minutes) helps us understand your goals, timeline, and budget so we can come back with a proposal that actually fits — no generic pitch decks.

Q02
Multiple ChoiceRequired

What's the main trigger that's got you looking for outside help right now?

  • We tried this in-house and hit a wall
  • We're growing faster than our current team/resources can handle
  • A new leadership priority or deadline
  • Our current consultant/agency isn't working out
  • We've never tackled this before
  • Other
Q03
Long TextRequired

In your own words, what would make this engagement a clear success six months from now?

Q04
AI Interview

Dig into the real story behind why they're reaching out now and what 'success' actually means in practice. Ask for a concrete, recent example of what's currently broken or blocked, what they've already tried internally or with other vendors, and what specifically would have to be true for them to call this engagement a win. If their success definition is vague or purely aspirational (e.g. 'grow the business'), press for a measurable outcome or deadline.

Q05
Multiple ChoiceRequired

How are you currently handling this work?

  • Doing it ourselves in-house
  • Working with another consultant or agency right now
  • We tried an outside partner before and it didn't work out
  • We're not doing anything about it yet
  • Other
Q06
Multiple ChoiceRequired

What budget range have you set aside for this engagement? (Template note: replace these figures with ranges that match your typical engagement size.)

  • Under $5,000
  • $5,000–$15,000
  • $15,000–$50,000
  • $50,000–$150,000
  • $150,000+
  • Not determined yet
Q07
Multiple ChoiceRequired

When are you hoping to get started?

  • Immediately / within 2 weeks
  • Within the next month
  • 1–3 months out
  • 3–6 months out
  • Just exploring, no firm timeline
Q08
Multiple ChoiceRequired

Besides you, who else will be involved in choosing who you hire for this?

  • My manager or an executive
  • A procurement or legal team
  • Other team members who'd work with the consultant/agency
  • A business partner or co-founder
  • Board or investors
Q09
RankingRequired

Rank these in order of what will matter most when you decide who to hire.

  1. Price
  2. Relevant industry expertise
  3. Case studies / past results
  4. Chemistry and communication style
  5. Speed / availability to start
  6. Size or reputation of the firm
Drag to rank
Q10
MatrixRequired

How important is each of the following when evaluating a consultant or agency?

5 rows × 5 columns
  • Cost relative to budget
  • Depth of industry-specific expertise
  • Clarity of proposed process/methodology
  • References or case studies from similar clients
  • Responsiveness during the sales process
Columns: Not important · Somewhat important · Important · Very important · Critical
Q11
Multiple Choice

What's the size of your organization? (Optional — helps us tailor our proposal.)

  • Solo / freelancer
  • 2–10 employees
  • 11–50 employees
  • 51–200 employees
  • 201–1,000 employees
  • 1,000+ employees
  • Prefer not to say
Q12
Message

That's everything — thank you! We'll use your answers to put together a proposal that fits your goals, budget, and timeline, and we'll follow up within a few business days with next steps.

What’s included

  • AI follow-ups

    Adaptive probes on open-ended answers that pull out detail a static form would miss.

  • Attention checks

    Built-in safeguards against rushed answers and low-quality respondents.

  • AI-drafted copy

    Wording, ordering, and branching written by the AI — tuned to your research goal.

  • Auto report

    Themes, quotes, and a plain-English summary write themselves once responses come in.

How it compares

We reviewed the closest templates from other survey tools. Here’s what they do well — and where this template goes further.

Why this template

  • Includes a dedicated AI follow-up interview block that probes past the polished pitch to surface what's actually broken and what's already been tried, not just what was typed into a static field
  • Pairs a open-ended 'success 6 months from now' question with AI follow-up so vague answers get pushed into specifics before the proposal is written
  • Covers the full pre-proposal picture in one flow — trigger, current workaround, budget range, timeline, decision-makers, ranked priorities, and importance matrix — so scoping isn't done on partial data
  • Ends with automated report generation from scored responses, turning intake answers directly into proposal-ready input instead of a raw response dump

SurveySparrow

Prospective Client Questionnaire Template

A directly comparable static template for capturing prospective client details before engagement. It's fielding-ready out of the box and likely supports SurveySparrow's conversational form style, but every respondent gets the same fixed question set. No mechanism to dig deeper when an answer like a budget range or 'success' description is vague.

What it does well

  • Purpose-built for the same pre-engagement prospect-intake use case
  • Conversational, chat-style form format typical of SurveySparrow
  • Ready to deploy without custom setup

Where it falls short

  • No adaptive follow-up — can't probe past a generic answer to find the real problem or what's already been tried
  • No automated per-response quality scoring, so incomplete or evasive answers pass through unflagged
  • No published methodology for how questions were designed or scored, since it's a plain static form

Typeform

Client Onboarding Questionnaire Form Template

This is an onboarding form for clients who've already signed, not a pre-proposal discovery questionnaire — so it sits a stage later than what's needed before a first call and a price quote. It's a polished, fielding-ready Typeform template, but the content focus (project kickoff details) differs from budget/decision-process discovery. Useful only as a loose structural reference for a consultant-facing form.

What it does well

  • Clean, well-known Typeform UX for one-question-at-a-time forms
  • Fielding-ready template requiring minimal setup
  • Good for post-sale logistics rather than pre-sale qualification

Where it falls short

  • Built for onboarding after the deal closes, not for discovering budget, timeline, and decision-makers before a proposal
  • No adaptive AI follow-up to uncover what's actually broken behind a client's stated goals
  • No automated scoring or report generation from responses — just raw submitted answers

Frequently asked questions

What questions are in the “Prospective Client Discovery & Fit Questionnaire” template?

The template includes 12 ready-to-use questions, starting with: “Thanks for considering us! This short questionnaire (about 5 minutes) helps us understand your goals, timeline, and budg…” · “What's the main trigger that's got you looking for outside help right now?” · “In your own words, what would make this engagement a clear success six months from now?”. The full set is previewed above, and every question is editable.

How long does this survey take to complete?

Respondents typically finish the 12 questions in about 7 minutes.

Can I customize this template?

Yes — every question, answer option, and the ordering is editable before you launch. You can add or remove questions, or ask the AI editor to rework the survey around your research goal.

Is this template free to use?

Yes. Open it in the editor and start customizing right away — no account required to try it, and the free plan covers launching your survey.

Ready to launch?

Open this template in the editor. Every part is yours to change before the first respondent sees it.

Use this templateStart free

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