Client Acquisition & Qualification Playbook

How we find, filter, and land clients for the danielslater.dev micro-agency — who we want and how we bring them in. Operational playbook — derived from BUSINESS-MODEL.md + DECISIONS.md (settled) + BRAND-STRATEGY.md.

Answers the two standing questions: what clients do we want, and how do we acquire them. Strategy is settled elsewhere — this is the repeatable how-to. Parents: Business model · Decisions — settled · Brand strategy. Siblings: Delivery & build · Pricing & payments.

0. Standing rules (read once, apply everywhere)

• NO hospitality clients — ever. Employer separation. Never design a step that routes hospitality/restaurant leads in. The restaurant app is anonymised capability proof only — never a referral seed, and never ask restaurant contacts for intros (their network is the exclusion).
• One active build + a waitlist. Daniel is ~¼–½ a full-timer's throughput. Never promise parallel work; qualified leads queue.
• Never more than two channels hot at once. Sales budget is ~4–6 h of the ~15 h/wk.
• SA leads first (ZAR ballast, ignition); INTL is the Q3 margin layer — not chased cold early.
• Client-facing language is outcome-led — no tech-stack talk, no AI hype. (These internal docs may name the stack.)

1. WHO we want — ICP at a glance

Hard disqualifiers (never route these in)

2. WHERE leads come from — sequenced, not parallel

Sequence (per the settled channel plan): referral = ignition → white-label = durable engine (Q2) → Upwork INTL = margin leg (Q3). Only referral + agency clear the close-rate the hours ceiling needs.

Current two hot channels: referral + white-label (Bree). Keep it to two.

Gate: hold all outbound until the site + an honest contact channel are live (ROADMAP → Now).

Current next-actions (from PROSPECTS.md + ROADMAP.md)

Dropped channels (one line): cold email (0.215% end-to-end close, ~30–70 h/client) and BNI (R20–27k/yr + 75–100 h/yr) — both fatal against the ~15 h/wk ceiling and the near-zero-spend preference.

3. The entry ladder (funnel)

Three rungs. Each rung is a decision point, and each is stated explicitly — the free look and the paid audit must never ambush each other.

Boundary rule (never ambush): name the ladder up front. The free look never silently becomes an unpaid full audit; the paid audit is always named with its price before any audit work starts. No one is ever surprised by a bill, and no one gets the paid audit for free.

Proposed — not yet in DECISIONS.md. Add a free automated website audit (mirroring Kea Logic's lead magnet) that grades load time / clarity / conversion friction from a URL, as a new top-of-funnel rung above the free 2-min look. It converts into the paid Signal Audit — the automated grade shows the symptom; the Signal Audit diagnoses and prices the fix with the client's own numbers. Flagged open in PROSPECTS.md; needs Daniel's ratification before building.

4. Qualification — go / no-go

Run this before offering anything beyond the free look.

Decision: any NO-GO on hospitality or legal/accounting = hard decline. Other NO-GOs → route to the ladder (the Signal Audit resolves most ambiguity) or the waitlist. When a build is already active, qualify and waitlist — never promise a parallel start.

5. Intake — first touch

Steps:

1. Log the lead in PROSPECTS.md with its stage the moment it arrives (§7).
2. First reply within 1 business day (Proposed response habit — not yet in DECISIONS.md; BRAND-STRATEGY calls for a "stated response habit" but sets no number). Use the register below.
3. Qualify against the go/no-go table (§4).
4. GO → offer the ladder: free 2-min look first, then book the Signal Audit — state R3,500 and the credit-to-build.
5. Hospitality / excluded → use the decline line; do not route in.
6. Intake form captures: site link, business goal, budget band, decision-maker — and carries the hospitality-decline line visibly (settled: decline stated in the intake form + every agency brief).
7. If a build is active → qualify + waitlist; set expectations, don't promise a start date (one-active-build cap).

First-reply WhatsApp template (register from BRAND-STRATEGY — quiet craftsman, plain prices, no hype):

Hi [name] — Daniel here. Send me your site link and I'll tell you straight what's worth keeping — free, two minutes. If you want the full map with your own numbers, that's the Signal Audit (R3,500, credited to any build). No obligation either way.

Hospitality-decline line (Proposed wording — not yet in DECISIONS.md; the fact of declining is settled, the exact copy is new):

Thanks for thinking of me — I don't take on hospitality or restaurant work (a hard line I keep, for day-job reasons). Happy to point you toward someone who does.

Register notes: short declaratives, outcomes over adjectives, prices stated plainly, zero stack talk, zero AI hype. For SA (ICP-A), WhatsApp click-to-chat sits above the form.

6. The on-spec preview play

The play: build a working preview before pitching (done with mozguide; candidate for Bree-referred clients). It de-risks the pitch and feeds the reference-and-proof engine (case-study library, live demo assets). How the build itself runs → Delivery & build.

Worked calls:

• mozguide (dad) → YES: family, full creative control, high portfolio value, reuses the tiny-agents template. Next portfolio case study.
• Bree-referred client → candidate: warm via partner; decide per-lead on reuse × effort.
• physioscpt (cold) → NO on-spec: approach through the ladder, opening on the broken parking-cert defect — not a free build.

Guardrail: on-spec previews consume the one active-build slot — never let them stack up against a paying build (concurrency cap). Adopting on-spec as a standing repeatable play (vs the mozguide one-off) and its thresholds above are Proposed — not yet in DECISIONS.md.

7. Pipeline tracking

Track every prospect and partner in PROSPECTS.md with its stage (idea · to-approach · in-conversation · pitched · won · parked · not-a-fit) and update the row on every touch — it is the single source of pipeline truth. Cross-check active work against BOARD.md.

Open decisions (→ DECISIONS.md)

• Free automated website audit (Kea Logic mirror — grades load time / clarity / conversion friction) as a new top-of-funnel rung that converts into the paid Signal Audit (§3). Open in PROSPECTS.md.
• First-reply response habit = 1 business day (§5) — BRAND-STRATEGY wants a stated habit; the number is unset.
• Hospitality-decline exact wording (§5) — the fact is settled; the copy is new.
• On-spec preview as a standing repeatable play + its go/no-go thresholds (§6) — currently a one-off precedent (mozguide).