How to qualify a lead before you write the proposal

You get an inquiry. Someone needs work done, the brief sounds interesting, and they want to hop on a call.

Most freelancers treat this call as an opportunity to sell themselves. It isn’t. It’s an opportunity to figure out whether this project is worth your time.

Those are very different objectives.

The proposal math nobody runs

Writing a proposal takes 1–3 hours. For a €5,000 project, that’s a non-trivial investment before you’ve seen a single euro. Multiply by a close rate of 30–40% — the realistic average for freelancers — and you’re spending 6–10 hours writing proposals for every project you land.

If you’re taking every inquiry and writing every proposal, you’re leaking time you can’t bill.

The discovery call is where you decide whether to proceed. Not where you win the work.

Four questions that determine everything

By the end of a discovery call, you need answers to four things. Everything else is secondary.

Is the budget real?

Not “do they have money” — everyone has some money. But “is the number in their head in the same range as your rate?”

Ask directly: “Do you have a budget range in mind for this?” If they won’t say, that’s information. If they say €2,000 for what would take you three weeks, that’s also information.

Don’t write a proposal that can’t work financially. A well-crafted proposal won’t move someone from €2,000 to €12,000.

Is there a real decision-maker on the call?

You can write the perfect proposal and have it die in a committee you never spoke to. Ask: “Who else is involved in making this decision?” If the person you’re talking to can’t approve the budget, find out who can — and whether you’ll get to speak with them before the proposal stage.

Is the timeline realistic?

“We need this done in two weeks” sometimes means a hard external deadline. Sometimes it means they haven’t thought about it at all.

If the timeline is impossible, say so now. Not in the proposal. Not after you’ve started work.

Why now?

The most underrated question. Why are they looking for this kind of help right now? What changed?

The answer tells you how motivated they are, how much pain they’re in, and whether there’s a real reason to move fast — or whether this will stall after the first call.

What you’re listening for

These aren’t automatic dealbreakers, but they compound.

Positive signals: a defined outcome (not just “improve things”), a named decision-maker, previous experience with freelancers, a deadline tied to something external.

Warning signs: budget questions deflected entirely, vague deliverables, multiple rounds of discovery before any decision, “we’re talking to a few people” with no stated timeline for choosing.

Each of these adds friction. Friction compounds. A project with three warning signs that converts has a high chance of being difficult to deliver.

What to do with what you learn

If the project qualifies — real budget, clear scope, actual decision-maker — write the proposal. You’re not pitching into the void.

If it doesn’t qualify, say so honestly. “Based on what you’ve described, I don’t think I’m the right fit for this budget” is useful for both of you.

If it’s borderline, ask yourself: what’s the realistic outcome if I write this? If the answer is “probably nothing,” skip it. Proposal time is unbilled time — there’s no softer way to frame it.

The signals you’ll start recognizing

After a few dozen discovery calls, patterns emerge. The same budget deflections. The same vague briefs. The same warning signs before signing.

Recognizing them faster means filtering faster.

Once you’ve qualified a project and know the budget range, you also know whether to propose an hourly rate, a fixed fee, or something closer to value-based pricing. That conversation starts on the discovery call too — not in the proposal.

The proposal itself is where you show you understood the problem. But that only works if you already know the project is worth writing for.

Timescanner reads your calendar to show you how much time went into past projects by client and type — so when a similar project comes up, you have real data to qualify the budget against. Works with any iCal-compatible calendar.