Sales & Conversion
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Every marketing "expert" will tell you the same thing: reduce friction, simplify your forms, ask for less information. Remove fields, use single-step forms, make it as easy as possible for people to contact you. I believed this too—until I tried the complete opposite with a B2B startup client and got results that made me question everything I knew about conversion optimization.
The client was drowning in inquiries that went nowhere. Their contact form was generating leads, sure, but 90% were tire-kickers who wasted sales team time with discovery calls that led to nothing. Sound familiar?
Instead of making it easier to contact them, I made it deliberately harder. I added more fields, more qualifying questions, more "friction." The result? Same quantity of leads, but dramatically higher quality. Sales team stopped complaining about bad leads and started closing more deals.
Here's what you'll learn from this counter-intuitive experiment:
Why reducing friction sometimes attracts the wrong prospects
The specific fields I added that improved lead qualification
How to use friction as a self-selection mechanism
When to add MORE friction vs. when to reduce it
The psychology behind why qualified prospects don't mind longer forms
This approach works especially well for SaaS companies and service businesses where lead quality matters more than lead quantity.
Industry Reality
What every conversion expert preaches about contact forms
If you've read any conversion optimization guide in the last decade, you've heard the same advice repeated like gospel: reduce friction at all costs. The standard playbook looks like this:
Minimize form fields - Ask only for name and email, maybe phone number if you're feeling brave
Use single-step forms - Never make users click "Next" to continue
Remove optional fields - Every additional field supposedly kills conversion rates
Make CTAs obvious - Big, bright buttons that scream "CONTACT US NOW"
A/B test for higher conversion rates - More submissions = better performance
This conventional wisdom exists because it's based on e-commerce thinking. For online stores, friction is the enemy. You want people to buy quickly before they change their minds. More checkout steps = more abandoned carts. It's that simple.
The problem? B2B service businesses aren't e-commerce stores. When someone's buying a $29 product, you want to make it frictionless. When someone's considering a $50,000 annual software contract or a $100,000 consulting engagement, the psychology is completely different.
Yet most B2B companies copy e-commerce conversion tactics and wonder why their sales teams are drowning in unqualified leads. The conventional wisdom optimizes for the wrong metric: form submissions instead of qualified prospects.
Here's where the standard approach falls short: it attracts everyone, including people who are just browsing, students doing research, competitors gathering intel, and prospects who will never have budget or decision-making authority. Your conversion rate looks great on paper, but your sales team wants to quit.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The client was a B2B startup in the software space—I won't get too specific, but think enterprise-level solutions with complex sales cycles. They had a beautiful website that was generating plenty of contact form submissions, but their sales team was frustrated.
The pattern was always the same: someone would fill out the simple contact form (name, email, company, brief message), the sales team would schedule a discovery call, and within 10 minutes they'd realize this person had no budget, no authority, or no actual timeline. 90% of their "leads" were going nowhere.
The marketing team was celebrating their conversion rates. The sales team was ready to revolt. Classic disconnect.
My first instinct was to follow the playbook: let's optimize this form for higher conversions. Remove fields, simplify the messaging, A/B test different button colors. All the standard stuff.
But then I had a conversation with their sales director that changed everything. He said something like: "I'd rather have 10 qualified leads than 100 tire-kickers. These discovery calls are killing our productivity."
That's when I realized we were optimizing for the wrong thing. We weren't trying to maximize form submissions—we were trying to maximize qualified prospects. Completely different goal.
So I proposed something that made the marketing team uncomfortable: what if we made the form deliberately harder to fill out? What if we used friction as a filter instead of trying to eliminate it?
They thought I was crazy. Every conversion expert would tell you this was backwards. But we decided to test it anyway—and the results completely shifted how I think about B2B lead generation.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of removing form fields, I added more qualifying questions. Here's exactly what the new contact form looked like:
Company type (dropdown): Startup, SMB, Mid-market, Enterprise, Other
Your role (dropdown): Founder/CEO, Marketing Director, Operations Manager, Other
Project timeline (radio buttons): Immediate need (next 30 days), Planning for next quarter, Exploring options for later this year, Just researching
Budget range (dropdown): Under $10k, $10k-$50k, $50k-$100k, $100k+, Not sure yet
Current situation (text area): What's your biggest challenge right now? (required, minimum 50 characters)
Previous solutions (text area): What have you tried before? (optional)
The psychology here is crucial: people with real problems and real budgets don't mind answering these questions. In fact, they appreciate that you're taking their situation seriously. It signals that you're not just trying to book as many calls as possible.
The tire-kickers, on the other hand, see this form and bounce immediately. They're not willing to invest even 2 minutes explaining their situation. Perfect—that's exactly what we wanted.
But I didn't stop there. I also changed the messaging around the form. Instead of "Get in touch" or "Contact us," the heading became: "Ready to discuss your specific situation? Help us prepare for a productive conversation."
The CTA button changed from "Submit" to "Request strategy session." Everything was designed to set expectations that this wasn't a quick chat—it was a serious business conversation.
The most important part: I set up automatic lead scoring based on the responses. Immediate timeline + $50k+ budget + decision-maker role = priority lead. "Just researching" + "Not sure yet" budget = lower priority follow-up sequence.
This allowed the sales team to focus their energy on the highest-potential prospects first, rather than treating every submission equally.
Strategic Friction
Adding qualifying questions that filter out unqualified prospects while signaling seriousness to qualified ones
Response Segmentation
Setting up automatic lead scoring based on form responses to prioritize follow-up efforts
Expectation Setting
Changing messaging and CTAs to communicate that this is for serious prospects only
Quality Metrics
Tracking lead quality metrics beyond just conversion rates - focusing on qualified opportunities generated
The results were exactly what we hoped for, but the magnitude surprised everyone. Within 30 days, we had the same number of form submissions but dramatically different lead quality.
Here's what changed:
Form submission rate: Stayed roughly the same (slight decrease, but not significant)
Discovery call show-rate: Increased from 60% to 85%
Qualified opportunities: Increased by 200%+ (same volume, much higher quality)
Sales team satisfaction: Went from frustrated to excited about incoming leads
Average deal size: Increased because we were talking to more qualified prospects
The most telling metric: sales velocity improved dramatically. Deals that used to take 6+ months to close were happening in 3-4 months because we were starting conversations with more qualified prospects.
But here's the unexpected part: the prospects who did fill out the longer form were actually more engaged. They'd already invested time thinking about their situation and articulating their challenges. The discovery calls became more productive because both sides came prepared.
The sales team started getting comments like "I appreciate that you asked detailed questions upfront" and "It's clear you understand our type of business." The friction actually improved the prospect experience.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experiment taught me several fundamental lessons that changed how I approach B2B lead generation:
Optimize for the right metric - Conversion rate is meaningless if you're converting the wrong people. Focus on qualified lead rate, not total lead rate.
Friction can be a feature - The right kind of friction filters out unqualified prospects while attracting serious buyers. It's about intentional barriers, not accidental ones.
Time investment signals intent - People willing to spend 3-5 minutes filling out a detailed form are more likely to spend 30 minutes on a discovery call and 30 days on a sales process.
Qualification should happen before the call - Use your form to pre-qualify prospects instead of wasting sales time on unqualified discovery calls.
Messaging matters as much as form design - How you position the form determines who fills it out. "Contact us" attracts everyone. "Request strategy session" attracts prospects.
Sales and marketing alignment is crucial - This only works when both teams agree that quality > quantity and measure success accordingly.
Know when to break conventional wisdom - E-commerce conversion tactics don't always apply to complex B2B sales. Question the "best practices" and test what works for your specific situation.
The biggest learning: Most businesses are afraid of losing leads, but they should be afraid of attracting the wrong leads. Bad leads are worse than no leads because they waste time, energy, and money while giving you false confidence in your pipeline.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies, implement strategic friction by asking about:
Company size and current tools
Implementation timeline and budget range
Decision-making process and stakeholders
Current pain points and desired outcomes
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce businesses, add qualifying questions for:
B2B wholesale inquiries vs retail customers
Custom order requirements and quantities
Business type and partnership opportunities
Specific product needs and use cases