# Client discovery questions

Free checklist from Plain Talk Developers · plaintalk.dev/skills/

The questions only the owner can answer. Ask them in the first conversation,
because every one of them blocks something later, and the ones nobody asks
are exactly the ones that stall a launch.

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## The business, in their words

- [ ] What do you actually do? Say it the way you would to a neighbor.
- [ ] Who is the customer you want more of, and who do you want less of?
- [ ] What do people get wrong about your business?
- [ ] Why do customers choose you over the company down the road?
- [ ] What is the job you wish you got more of?

## Facts you are not allowed to invent

Everything below has to come from them. Invent aesthetic copy freely; never
invent a fact the business has to stand behind.

- [ ] **Registered legal entity name**, the LLC or DBA, exactly as
      registered.
- [ ] **Licensed, bonded, insured**, in the exact wording they are
      comfortable standing behind.
- [ ] Certifications, and who issued them.
- [ ] Years in business, and from what date.
- [ ] Turnaround times they will actually honor on a bad week.
- [ ] Any guarantee, in the exact words they will stand behind.
- [ ] Service areas: the real ones, not the aspirational ones.
- [ ] Hours, including how after-hours calls are handled.

## Money and conversion

- [ ] Do you want prices on the site? If not, why not?
- [ ] What should a visitor do: call, book, or fill in a form?
- [ ] Where should leads go: inbox, CRM, both?
- [ ] Who answers, and how fast?
- [ ] Is there a minimum job size you would rather not get calls about?

## Proof

- [ ] Do you have reviews, and where do they live?
- [ ] Can I pull them live, or do you want specific ones featured?
- [ ] Any customer who would go on camera?
- [ ] Before and after photos of real jobs?

Never fabricate a review, a rating or a count. A quote attributed to a named
real person who did not say it is the worst thing you can put on a site.

## Accounts, ownership and access

- [ ] Who owns the domain, and can you log in to the registrar right now?
- [ ] Is there a Google Business Profile, and who controls it?
- [ ] Existing analytics, ads accounts, Search Console?
- [ ] Existing site: who built it and do you have access?
- [ ] Any email on the domain? (This decides whether DNS cutover is risky.)

## Photography, specifically

This one delays more builds than anything else, so settle it in week one.

- [ ] Do you have photos of real work, at full resolution, not from social?
- [ ] Photos of the team, the vehicles, the premises?
- [ ] If not: are you willing to do a shoot, or should we design around not
      having them?

"We'll send photos" without a date means no photos. Get a date or make the
decision without them.

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## Track what is still open

Every unanswered question above becomes an open item, with the date you asked
and who owes the answer. Keep it somewhere the client can see.

Review it at the end of every phase. **An item open for three weeks is not
waiting, it is stuck**, and it needs a different approach: a phone call, a
default you propose, or a decision to ship without it.

## The honest framing that gets answers faster

> The parts we are waiting on will not stop us building. They will stop us
> launching, so the sooner the better.

That sentence moves more open items than a follow-up email, because it makes
the cost concrete without making it the client's fault.

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**Want the full method?** The Discovery skill covers how to run the
conversation, what to do when answers do not come, and how the open-items
list tracks a project all the way to launch.

plaintalk.dev/skills/