I would have it without range, all different uses cases..

Haha yes. I was juggling my kids and didn't expect you to see my comment so quickly. I shared it expecting to come back.

Ok, so:

Pros for me:

• I can validate people and save time on my calendar. It lets me immediately dismiss low-ball offers or potential clients who aren't the best fit.

• I'm putting my "starts at" rate for one article on my site for transparency. If they say their monthly budget is $X and it comes out to 5 articles a month worth but they're asking for 6-8 articles per month, I have a really great starting point for the sales conversation.

• Regardless, it just lets me know where their mindset is around content writers. Do they value the work or not? Are they respectful? How realistic are they? Are they looking for a one-off project or something more long term? Is there room for negotiation where we can both benefit?

Cons for me:

• People do get intimidated sometimes when they see the budget question, especially startups that haven't set a firm marketing budget. (Or people who have a range in mind but want to get away with undercharging. It happens.) They might skip over the form entirely instead of entering negotiations.

• People might feel uncomfortable saying their actual budget because they want to just know the price upfront. (Except I do have my "starts at" price on my site, so this wouldn't necessarily be a problem for them.) This is part of the undercharging problem too. While I understand they want to "get a good deal," it's also good to be fair with service providers.

• Some people would really rather just get on a phone call and talk it out. I'm not the best fit for those people, though, because I physically can't get on a call with everyone who wants to talk. I wouldn't have enough time to do my actual work. (So this is a con for them but a pro for me.)

Overall, for me, the pros VASTLY outweigh the cons because it helps me weed out people who just are not the best fit so I can spend my time with people who are ideal clients.

Oh also, for your second con example, it'd just be wasting their time if they do that. I've never had anyone pull that, though. It looks like you're also working in a B2B capacity (correct me if I'm wrong, though), so that's just less likely to happen anyway. People running/managing companies are too busy to play around.

Plus, the way I operate on a sales call is I just dive right in with "okay, you want this amount of work and your budget is this" and let them confirm or change it. Then go from there with negotiations, if any.

My job is to streamline the entire process as much as possible for them to save them time and effort, and asking that budget question upfront is a part of that process so we can skip right to the sale on the sales call instead of them going back and forth with "oh I'm not sure" while we're on Zoom (or in person).

Awesome! (Also, I'm a weird ttrpg gamer, so I definitely just mentally thought +1 for persuasiveness 🤣)

Ok, so since you've decided to include one, there are a few ways I have this form.

1.) For B2B content writing for SaaS companies -- it's straightforward. Just a regular content form, no frills. I want to focus on simplicity and ease, and I don't want to add barriers to them reaching out.

(I sell B2B services to an audience with B2B buying habits.)

2.) For solopreneur strategy consulting -- I create a quiz with conditional logic where I ask about their brand and content marketing. How they answer the questions determine which new questions they see, and at any point, they can be taken out of the quiz if they disqualify themselves.

Instead of being like "you're out, good luck elsewhere," I treat this quiz as a TOFU piece of content and share resources with them based on their answers so they still get served.

If they get all the way to the end, they get my calendar and a form to fill out for our conversation to give me extra context.

This allows me to:

• get extremely valuable info about everyone who takes it. People are more willing to be honest when it's a quiz vs a survey too. They feel less judged, and they want to know their quiz result lol.

• auto sync to convert kit and tag them appropriately to deliver relevant content (and offers) later. They can also get relevant content suggested to them, so that's just a great boost.

• gamify the whole process and keep people interested because OF COURSE they want to get insight about their strategy. (And I do create this as a quiz with different results.)

• validates people in multiple ways before a call (saves sooo much time)

• invites them to join my Mighty Network, which gets them even MORE in my world.

• shows off my weird personality (the results all have Star Trek GIFs 🤣) and increases brand recognition

This really only works for people with B2C purchasing habits (even if it's a B2B offer, but it works with B2C service-based and digital product offers too).

People with B2B purchasing habits make more logical decisions and don't need this kind of entertainment to make a decision.

I hope this gets you thinking about creative possibilities! I've literally NEVER seen someone build out a quiz funnel quite like I have, and it's been really cool to see it in action. And I've kept the structure but have been revising it since I've slightly shifted, and I love how versatile it is.

GOOD LUCK!! 🙌🏼