Yeah, we've had a couple of leads like this but each has wasted an enormous amount of our time. The general story has been they'll bring in several companies, we'll compete to get their business. We'll win the "competition" and then they'll assure us they're right about to pull the trigger for years.

I've found that a large portion of clients that have vague idea of what they want are window shopping or very early in the purchasing process, that usually when I have vague requirements I'm usually pretty far from writing a large check. And it's really difficult(for me at least) to tell the difference between "I want to write a large check to solve a problem which I don't have any proposed solutions for" and "I have no idea what problem I want to solve, and if I even want to solve it, but I'd like to bring in a highly paid expert and chat with him for free to figure out if I even want to solve this problem".

Ah right, that's the key. Window shopping is ok, if it's the kind where they will write a check for you to help with the shopping. Window shopping where they are not anywhere near writing a check is no good, and is something sales funnel should try to actively disqualify leads for