Velocity Diagnostic — Quiz Design

Business: StackFast
Purpose: Dual-purpose client intake — qualifies inbound leads AND gathers deep operational context for engagement prep
Distribution: Hosted on web, linked from email, LinkedIn, and other sources
Target length: 6 questions (each one doing heavy lifting)

Name Recommendation

Primary: Business Velocity Diagnostic
Short form: Velocity Diagnostic (for repeat use, email subject lines, internal reference)

Why this works

• "Velocity" captures the core StackFast promise — speed of delivery AND speed of business operations
• "Diagnostic" elevates it from a quiz to a professional tool — something a $5K-$40K service provider uses to prepare, not a lead-gen gimmick
• It implies expertise on your side (you're running the diagnostic) and value for the client (they get insight just by completing it)

How to frame it when sending

"Before we talk, I run every potential project through a Velocity Diagnostic. It takes about 3 minutes and lets me map your current bottlenecks so our first conversation is entirely about solutions — not information gathering."

Question Design Philosophy

Each question serves two masters:

The answer options are designed so that every choice tells you something useful, even the "wrong" answers for qualification purposes.

The 6 Questions

Q1: "What's eating your time right now?"

Type: Multi-select (pick up to 3)
Purpose: Identifies pain points AND reveals build scope

Options:

• Manual data entry between systems (spreadsheets, copy-paste between tools)
• Quoting, invoicing, or billing processes
• Customer communication and follow-ups
• Scheduling, booking, or job management
• Reporting — pulling numbers from multiple places to see how the business is going
• Onboarding new clients or staff
• Something else (free text)

Qualification signal: More selections = more pain = higher urgency. Specific selections map directly to build types (quoting tool, customer portal, scheduling app, dashboard).

Diagnostic value: This is your pre-engagement scope map. If they pick "quoting + scheduling + reporting," you already know the shape of the project before the first call.

Q2: "How is this work getting done today?"

Type: Single select
Purpose: Gauges technical maturity AND identifies displacement opportunity

Options:

• Spreadsheets and documents (Google Sheets, Excel, Word)
• A mix of off-the-shelf tools that don't talk to each other (Xero + Trello + email, etc.)
• One main platform that doesn't quite fit (e.g., a CRM doing things it wasn't built for)
• Mostly manual — phone calls, paper, memory
• We built something in-house but it's held together with tape

Qualification signal:

• "Spreadsheets" or "mostly manual" = classic StackFast sweet spot, high fit
• "Mix of tools" = integration play, good fit
• "Built something in-house" = they understand custom software value, very high fit
• "One main platform" = might just need configuration, lower fit (but still worth a conversation)

Diagnostic value: Tells you what you're replacing and the migration complexity.

Q3: "How many people touch these processes daily?"

Type: Single select
Purpose: Sizes the business AND the build scope

Options:

• Just me
• 2-5 people
• 6-15 people
• 16-50 people
• 50+

Qualification signal:

• "Just me" = solopreneur, likely Quick Build budget ($5K-$15K)
• "2-5" = small team, sweet spot for Quick Build or Full Build
• "6-15" = solid Full Build territory ($15K-$40K)
• "16-50" or "50+" = Full Build or Growth Partner, higher-value engagement

Diagnostic value: User count directly shapes architecture decisions, permissions design, and rollout planning.

Q4: "If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing tomorrow, what would it be?"

Type: Free text (short — 1-2 sentences)
Purpose: Surfaces their #1 priority in their own words

Qualification signal: The specificity of their answer correlates with readiness. Vague answers ("be more efficient") = still exploring. Specific answers ("stop manually copying quotes from Excel into Xero every Friday afternoon") = ready to buy.

Diagnostic value: This is gold for the first call. You can open with "You mentioned [their exact words] — here's how I'd solve that in week one."

Q5: "What's the cost of not fixing this?"

Type: Single select
Purpose: Qualifies budget headroom AND creates urgency in the client's own mind

Options:

• It's annoying but we're managing
• We're losing a few hours a week across the team
• It's costing us real money — missed follow-ups, delayed invoices, lost jobs
• It's limiting our growth — we can't take on more work without more people
• We've already tried to fix it and it didn't work

Qualification signal:

• "Annoying but managing" = low urgency, nurture lead
• "Losing hours" = moderate, likely Quick Build buyer
• "Costing real money" = high urgency, ready for Full Build
• "Limiting growth" = highest urgency, understands ROI, ideal client
• "Already tried to fix it" = experienced buyer, knows what they want, very high fit

Diagnostic value: Tells you which ROI angle to lead with on the call. "Limiting growth" clients want to hear about scale. "Costing real money" clients want to hear about payback period.

Q6: "What does your timeline look like?"

Type: Single select
Purpose: Qualifies urgency AND sets expectations

Options:

• I need this sorted yesterday
• Within the next month would be ideal
• This quarter — I'm planning ahead
• Just exploring what's possible right now

Qualification signal:

• "Yesterday" = hot lead, prioritise
• "Next month" = warm, book the call now
• "This quarter" = planning, nurture with content
• "Just exploring" = cold, add to email sequence

Diagnostic value: Shapes your proposal timeline and whether to suggest Quick Build (fast) or Full Build (planned).

Scoring Logic (Internal — Not Shown to Client)

Lead Temperature

Scoring per question

Q1 (Pain breadth): 1 selection = 1pt, 2 = 2pts, 3 = 3pts, "Something else" with detail = 3pts

Q2 (Current state):

• Spreadsheets/manual = 4pts
• Mix of tools = 3pts
• Built in-house = 4pts
• One platform = 2pts

Q3 (Team size):

• Just me = 1pt
• 2-5 = 2pts
• 6-15 = 3pts
• 16-50 = 4pts
• 50+ = 4pts

Q4 (Magic wand): Score manually based on specificity (1-4 scale)

Q5 (Cost of inaction):

• Annoying = 1pt
• Losing hours = 2pts
• Costing money = 3pts
• Limiting growth = 4pts
• Already tried = 4pts

Q6 (Timeline):

• Exploring = 1pt
• This quarter = 2pts
• Next month = 3pts
• Yesterday = 4pts

Maximum score: 23 (Q1:3 + Q2:4 + Q3:4 + Q4:4 + Q5:4 + Q6:4)

What the Client Sees After Completing

Don't give them a generic "thanks, we'll be in touch." Give them immediate value — this justifies the diagnostic framing and builds trust.

Option A: Instant mini-report (recommended)

Based on their Q1 + Q2 answers, show a short paragraph like:

Your Velocity Profile: Operations-Heavy, Tool-Fragmented

Businesses like yours typically recover 10-15 hours per week when manual handoffs between systems are replaced with a single purpose-built tool. Based on your responses, the highest-impact starting point would be [auto-populated based on Q1 top selection].

I'll review your full diagnostic and come back with specific recommendations within 24 hours.

Option B: Simple confirmation with expectation-setting

Thanks for completing the Velocity Diagnostic. I'll review your responses and send you a short summary of what I'd recommend as a starting point — typically within 24 hours.

Implementation Notes

• Platform options: Tally.so (clean, free, embeddable), Typeform (premium feel, branching logic), or custom-built on the StackFast site
• Data flows to: CRM or Airtable/NocoDB for lead scoring, then triggers email sequence or personal outreach based on score
• Consider: Connecting the results to an n8n workflow that auto-scores and routes leads (hot → Slack notification, warm → email sequence, cool → nurture drip)