Feedback from outside your target market will send you iterating in the wrong direction, confidently.
A screener is what prevents it: a short set of multiple-choice questions asked before the conversation, where you have decided in advance which answers qualify somebody and which rule them out. If you are aiming at people who bill for their time, ask how they charge — not whether they consider themselves a professional.
Write the screener from the persona. Every attribute you claimed matters becomes a question, and any attribute you cannot turn into a question was probably decoration.
Fix the disqualifying answers before you read a single response. Once there is a real person in front of you and a slot to fill, every answer starts to look close enough.