Window shoppers don't make good clients. If you need convincing, we don't want your business. Please go to one of our competitors, preferably the biggest one.

In general, doers do and talkers talk. If you really need the service, you're going to buy it and figure out things yourself. Plus, paying customers always get support and help no matter what. If you start talking hypothetical scenarios and custom requirements, it's mostly bullshit you don't really care about. And it will never amount to anything.

In the words of Ray Liotta: "The place burned down? Fuck you, pay me. Lightning struck? Fuck you, pay me. Slow business? Fuck you, pay me." We work for money. Not to make your life easier out of the goodness of our hearts. Money talks and bullshit walks. Anything else and you're just wasting both of out times.

Yes!

We deal with worldwide geographical data. It's usual to request sample data. If it's custom then often enough creating the sample data is 50% of the work (especially if you do test-driven development). It doesn't lead to more sales. One hour or two days of work didn't matter. Once we were even told that since we have the feature now the customer doesn't understand why it would cost extra. And more than once the sample data was used to find flaws and to negotiate the price down.

My suggestion is to ask for $10 pre-payment. Or have them sign up to your basic plan first. You will see a lot of prospects won't even reply to your email.

I've seen web development agencies even charge for meetings for Skype calls with prospective customers. I guess that's one way to filter out clients with small pockets.

in a very similar position, dealing with a tool that produces data. they also ask for the sample data. most of the time it is relatively quick but then of course always something extra that needs to be configured and customer doesn't like to pay extra for the labor.

I find it interesting that NONE of these people that have requested sample data ended up as customers. It was almost always a wasted effort. In fact, almost all the customers bought immediately and then worked with to figure out what needed to be done and in most cases quite okay with waiting.

I will have to agree that filtering might be good here.

Charge a fair price for your work, discount that price from the final bill.