A message lands in your inbox on a Sunday night. "Hi, I love your work. Could you make something for my sister? Not sure of the budget. What do you charge?" No dimensions, no date, no clue what they actually picture in their head. You've read some version of this a hundred times, and you already know it might take nine emails to learn whether it's a real job or a polite maybe.
The customer isn't being difficult. They just don't know what you need to hear, so they lead with the one question they can think of, which is price. And price is the last thing you can answer honestly, because you don't yet know the size, the wood or the clay or the frame, the deadline, or whether they want the thing you love making or the thing you dread.
Most of that gap you can close before you ever type a reply. A little structure up front turns a vague hello into a quotable job, and it does the asking so you don't have to do it one message at a time.
Build one inquiry form that asks the questions for you
Instead of a bare contact box, put a short intake form on your inquiry page. A form builder (the free tool that makes a simple fillable web page, like Google Forms or Tally) lets you require the details you always end up chasing anyway.
Keep it short enough to finish in two minutes. Every extra field costs you a few people who give up, so ask only for what changes the price or the yes.
- What are you imagining? A few sentences, plus a photo or link if they have one.
- Size or scale. Rough is fine. "About the size of a dinner plate" tells you plenty.
- When do you need it? A real date, not "no rush," which never means no rush.
- Budget range. Offer brackets to pick from so nobody has to guess your prices cold.
- Is this a gift? Gifts come with hard deadlines and softer budgets.
Budget brackets do quiet, useful work. When someone picks the lowest one and your piece starts three tiers up, you've learned that in a single click instead of over a week. Nobody's feelings get hurt, and you've saved both of you the dance.
Let AI draft your scoping questions, you keep the judgment
Sometimes a form isn't enough and you need a real follow-up. This is where a large language model (software like ChatGPT or Claude that drafts text from a plain-English request) earns its keep. Not to talk to your customer, and not to set your prices. Just to help you ask better questions faster.
Paste the inquiry in and tell it what you make. Try something like: "I'm a furniture maker. A customer wants a dining table but gave no wood, size, or finish. Draft five short scoping questions in a warm, plain tone." You'll get a tidy list in seconds, and you can fire off the two or three that matter.
You can also keep a saved prompt for your most common commission type, so the draft comes back already sounding like your shop. Edit it every time. The tool doesn't know that oak moves with the seasons or that your kiln has a two-week wait, so it will miss the questions only you know to ask.
Here's the honest limit. AI is good at the first draft and bad at the deciding. It'll happily suggest a timeline it has no way to keep, or phrase a question that sounds fine and lands wrong with a nervous first-time buyer. Read every word before it goes out under your name. Treat it like a sharp apprentice who's never actually run the bench.
Deposit and timeline templates that ride along with every quote
The money conversation gets awkward when you improvise it each time. So don't. Write your terms once, save them, and paste the same block into every quote. Predictable is reassuring, and it protects you when a job goes sideways.
A workable template covers four things and nothing fancy:
- Deposit. A set percentage to start, commonly a third to a half, that reserves your time and covers materials. Say plainly that work begins once it clears.
- Timeline. A realistic window, not your best day ever. If it's usually four weeks, quote six, because the finish or the frame or the glaze will find a way to take longer.
- Changes. One round of tweaks included, and an hourly or flat rate after that. This one sentence saves you from the customer who redesigns the piece three times for free.
- Balance and pickup. When the rest is due and what happens if a piece sits uncollected for months.
Keep the language friendly and human. "To hold your spot on the bench, I ask for half up front" reads a lot warmer than a wall of legal terms, and it does the same job. You can store these as saved replies in your email or as a one-page note you copy from. The point is that you never write them under pressure at the moment someone's asking.
A quote layout that heads off the back-and-forth
A number with no story invites haggling. A quote that shows its reasoning tends to get a yes. You don't need software for this, just a consistent shape you reuse.
Lead with what they'll get, in their words, so they feel understood: "a walnut side table, roughly 24 inches, oil finish, ready by mid-November." Then the price. Then your terms block. Then one clear next step, which is usually "reply yes and I'll send the deposit link."
When the picture and the price and the plan all sit on one screen, most people either say yes or ask one real question. That's the whole goal, to trade the slow trickle of half-answers for a single clear exchange.
Saying no to the wrong job, kindly
Not every inquiry is your inquiry. Some are underpriced for the work, some are outside what you make, and some come with a tone that tells you the whole thing will be a headache. Turning those down fast is a business skill, not a rudeness.
Have two short notes ready. One is a warm decline: thank them, be honest that it's not the right fit for your shop, and point them somewhere useful if you can. The other is a redirect for when it's almost right, offering the version you'd actually enjoy making at a price that works.
A maker friend keeps a line she reuses: "This one's a bit outside what I do best, and you deserve someone who'll love making it." It's kind, it's true, and it ends things cleanly. AI can help you soften a decline if the words feel stuck, but keep it brief. A long no reads like an opening to negotiate, and you're not negotiating.
Worth doing this week
You don't need to overhaul anything. Pick a couple of these and you'll feel the difference on the next inquiry.
- Build a five-field intake form and link it from your inquiry page and your social profiles.
- Write your deposit and timeline terms once, in your own voice, and save them where you can paste them fast.
- Draft a reusable quote layout: what they get, the price, your terms, one next step.
- Save two decline notes, a warm no and an almost-right redirect, so a bad-fit job takes thirty seconds to close out.
- Try one AI-drafted set of scoping questions for your most common commission, then edit it until it sounds like you.
If you'd rather have someone set the forms and templates up for you and wire them into your inbox, that's the sort of thing we do at MA AI Agency. Either way, the aim is the same: more time at the bench, less time typing the same email for the ninth time.