Any quote written before these 6 questions is a guess

I once spent the better part of a week on a proposal for a marketing manager who was enthusiastic, detailed, responsive and completely unable to approve anything. The document went to a board meeting I wasn’t in, was described by someone who hadn’t read it, and died there. I never spoke to the person who said no.

That was my fault, not his. I’d written a price for a piece of work when what I should have been writing was an assessment of a business. Those are different documents and only one of them gets signed.

So there are 6 questions now, and each one is on the list because skipping it cost me something. If you’re buying, read them as a filter. A supplier who asks these has already paid for the lesson. One who takes your brief, nods along and returns a number 3 days later is quoting on a document, not on your situation.

1. Who signs this off, and who’s standing behind them?

Every project has a decision-maker and a set of people who can quietly veto without ever being in a meeting. Finance. IT. A founder with an opinion about the logo. You need both lists before you price anything, because the invisible ones are where scope goes to die.

A worrying answer is “I’ll handle the internal side, don’t worry about that.” It usually means my contact isn’t confident of their own position and would rather I didn’t test it. The other one is “we’ll just need to run it past a few people”, where the number of people is never given. Ask for the number. Ask for the names. And if you’re the one briefing, and you can’t name the people who can veto it, find out before anyone quotes.

2. What happens if this project doesn’t happen?

This is the question that tells me whether there’s a budget or a wish. If the honest answer is “nothing much, we carry on as we are”, then I’m not competing with another supplier. I’m competing with doing nothing, and doing nothing wins most of the time because it’s free and nobody gets blamed for it.

A good answer has a consequence attached with a shape to it: the manual process breaks at the volume they’re heading for, or a contract renews in March, or someone is doing 2 days a week of work that the system was supposed to absorb. A worrying answer is “we just think it’s time for a refresh.” Refresh projects don’t have owners, and projects without owners stall in month 2 and get blamed on the supplier. If your honest answer is “nothing much”, keep the money until it isn’t.

3. What’s there now, and what’s already been tried?

Nothing arrives on a blank page. There’s a system, a previous attempt, an internal build somebody’s cousin did or a piece of software bought 2 years ago that nobody uses. That history is the most valuable thing in the conversation and it’s never in the brief.

I ask it because I once quoted a build to replace a platform the client was still under contract for, which meant my number had to compete with a cost they were paying regardless. I found that out in week 3. A worrying answer is “nothing, this is all new”, when the business is 8 years old. It’s rarely a lie. It usually means the person briefing me wasn’t there for the last attempt and hasn’t asked anyone who was.

4. What is the deadline attached to?

There’s a date, and then there’s the reason for the date. The reason is the only part that matters, because it tells me whether the deadline is a real constraint or a preference that will move the first time something else does.

A real answer sounds like a trade show, a lease ending, a funding round, a regulatory date, a campaign already booked with media spend behind it. A worrying answer is “as soon as possible”, or a date chosen because it’s the end of a quarter and looks tidy. Fake deadlines are more expensive than real ones. A real one lets you cut scope to hit it. A fake one gets quietly abandoned after you’ve paid for the overtime.

5. Who does the work on your side, and what else is on their plate?

Every project has client-side work. Content, approvals, access, product data, someone to answer questions within a day. It has to come from a named human with capacity, not from a department.

I learned this one properly on a build that was technically finished for months while it waited on copy from a person who had a full-time job and had never been told this was part of theirs. I’d delivered. I couldn’t invoice the final stage. Nobody was at fault and everyone was annoyed. A worrying answer is “the team will handle it”, or a named person who visibly hears about their new responsibility for the first time while sitting in the meeting. Name that person before you ask for a quote, and tell them first.

6. How will you know this worked?

Ask it before quoting, not after delivering. If success is undefined at the start, it gets defined at the end by whoever is least satisfied.

A good answer is measurable and modest: enquiries go up, that process stops taking 2 days, the support inbox drops, the 3 tools this replaces get cancelled. A worrying answer is “it just needs to look more professional.” Not because appearance doesn’t matter, but because it makes one person’s taste the acceptance criteria, and taste changes when they show it to their partner on a Sunday. Write your answer down before the first meeting, so the end of the project isn’t where it gets decided.

What the questions are actually for

Half the value here isn’t in the answers. It’s in watching how they get answered.

If you know who signs, what doing nothing costs and why the date is the date, your project will happen. If you can’t answer the 6, you don’t have a project yet. You have an intention, and no proposal can turn that into certainty. Answer the 6 first, then ask for a number.

I don’t write a number until I have all 6, because a quote with a gap in it is just a guess wearing a total.

I’ve never lost a project by asking these. I’ve lost several by not.