Work without TK and pre-project research

Question

Business Informatics

Good afternoon.
We have been working with our client base for many years now, our clients usually do not know what they want and ask to see what we have already developed. Often we offer something new that has not yet been developed and this requires a pre-project study.
Attention, the question is how to make a client pay for such services without concluding an agreement? Because there are projects on which a sufficient part of the time is spent just to determine the possibilities and labor costs. And concluding a contract in advance is not an option, because we still don’t know exactly what functionality we can implement for the customer. However, people work and they need to be paid.

PS I myself am an employee of this company, I am interested in protecting my own interests.

Answer 1

Include in the contract concluded later the cost of the research carried out.