Yes, in my view.
For many years, consultants, coaches, trainers – and even accountants and lawyers – have been offering “free initial consultations” as a way of encouraging clients to engage with them.
The logic, of course, is that once they work with them for an hour or so, their fears about whether the professional knew their stuff and whether they’d be able to get on with them would be laid to rest.
Some of the more marketing savvy professionals learnt how to focus the initial consultation on identifying the client’s most urgent problems and plotting an outline action plan rather than simply giving away an hour’s free work. In that way the client was taken on a journey where they realised just how big their issues were and were more inclined to buy as a result.
But in my experience, potential clients are becoming less and less likely to take up the offer of free initial consultations.
The change is coming from two angles:
- Firstly, they’ve experienced some professionals using the initial consultation as a blatant opportunity to sell to them. They now view initial consultations as risky – with a high chance they’ll be subjected to a sales pitch and receive little value from the session.
- Secondly, they’ve discovered that they can achieve many of the things they got from an initial consultation in other ways (for free too) without having to engage with a professional. Meeting a consultant, lawyer or other professional can be a daunting prospect. So if they believe they can get similar value from a free e-book or video or seminar recording – then they’ll often prefer to take that option. And they can take this option at their own convenience – without having to travel or wait until the professional is available.
My advice:
Most professionals benefit greatly from having some form of free give-away which gets a client to begin to engage with them. It can demonstrate their expertise, give clues as to what they’re like to work with, and generally reduce the client’s perceived risk.
But the day when free initial consultations worked well for this are gone. If all you have as a freebie is a free consultation you need to think again, and create something else you can offer as an easier to bite option.
It could be that after sampling your free report or teleseminar, the potential client is ready for a free consultation (or they may be ready to buy straight away). But it’s unlikely that today’s time-pressed cynical executives will jump at the chance of a free consultation if nothing has come before it to demonstrate your capabilities and personality.
As a professional in the business services field I always explain that the free consultation is to listen to what their issues are. Then i can work out whether and how I may be able to help.
I never sell before i listen.How can you?
I couldn’t agree with your point more. The concept of a “free” consultation is well known. Everyone knows it’s nothing more than agreeing to a sales appointment. Just like a “free” insurance review.
So what happens when you offer a “free” consultation? You trigger the defenses in an already skeptical stranger who is looking to get help from someone like you. Once you trigger a prospects defenses it’s very hard to overcome those defenses and gain their trust.
That means if you want to include a “free” consultation in your sales process it must come much farther down the line in your sales funnel. There are 6 steps in the relationship process. Offering a “free” consultation or coaching session at step 1 doesn’t make solid business sense.
Ian – of course you need to listen before selling. But my point is that the concept of an initial consultation is now treated with deep suspicion by many clients. It’s partly because it’s been abused by professionals who have used it as an excuse just to pitch their services. And it’s partly because we have other more convenient ways of getting to the same end.
You may always explain to your clients that what you’re doing is listening to their issues to see if you can help them – but many professionals don’t. They imply the client will be getting something they don’t. And so in future, those clients are wary of anyone who offers a free consultation.
And nowadays we’re all short of time. Some of the things I would go and talk to an expert professional about in the past I now go online for and watch a video or read an article. My initial engagement with a topic happens way before I am willing to invest in meeting up with a professional. And I’m certainly going to check them out in other ways first.
So a free consultation may still be part of the process – but it’s not the initial part.
Smart professionals are coming up with other ways of engaging and adding value to clients way before they meet them.
Ian
I agree with your sentiment Mr or Mrs “Increase Sales Coach”. However I’d prefer it if you used your name rather than search engine keywords next time you leave a comment!
Ian
*Very* interesting post, Ian. I’ve been thinking of changing our tactic for some time now, but hesitate towards action until I know what and WHY I want to make the shift.
Before I was a Professional Certified Coach PCC, I didn’t do much in the way of free consults. I’d chat with people, but it was informal. Then I attended coaching school and was told that ALL coaches are expected to provide a free session of 30-60 minutes. There are good reasons for it, of course. Primary being the fact that coaching is an ongoing relationship (not one off consulting) and client and coach need to make sure it’s a good fit. Yet still, it can be a time-waster if it’s not the right match.
In my experience, the best use of free consult time is when the person has *already* decided to hire us and we’re just providing validation that their instinct was right. Those calls are very enlivening and usually end with us scheduling appts.
I’m not sure about moving it farther down the funnel. Honestly, my first thought was, “So we have to jump thru MORE hoops, so we can give away free sessions?” But as I think about it more, I think the key is not necessarily giving away more freebies (though your approach is good) but in giving away enough information, so that the prospective client is only calling for the free consult after they’re already ready to hire.
Great point Jaya. By moving the free consultation up the funnel, you’re also doing fewer of them – for pre-qualified clients rather than everyone.
Ian
Hey Ian, Loved your comment on my NLP post – fantastic stuff!
I don’t agree that free consultations are dead on the whole. From a conversion perspective, a lead can be very expensive and a free consultation often reduces the per lead acquisition cost dramatically.
But…
The free consultation has been abused by those offering them…
I went for a free legal consultation in order to confirm my suspicions that a claim made against me was baseless. The first half hour was very positive “not a leg to stand on” etc, however at some point the solicitor had a change of heart. I think that was the moment she realised she wasn’t going to draw any cash from this session… that’s when she went down the “cease and desist letter for good measure, for £500″ route.
If a free consultation is to be offered, it can’t be used to give bad or self serving advice, that’s just immoral.
In terms of converting a free consultation into a paying client, pure honest and free giving is definitely the best way to go. People can readily pick up on BS, conversely if you give something for free you trigger reciprocity. It’s like buying rounds in the bar. If someone buys you a beer, you reciprocate. But if some bloke buys you a “beer” and its just coloured water, you sure as buggery aren’t going to reciprocate with anything less than a boot in the chin.
Vince – my experience is that clients, for the very reasons you mention, are becoming increasingly wary of free consultations. They’ve been burned by sales pitches disguised as free consultations.
From talking to lawyer friends, it seems that their clients aren’t yet this wary of free consultations. But in the consulting & coching world it’s definitely happening.
Rgds
Ian
I make a similar point from a different perspective when talking to audiences of accountants Ian.
When I ask them whether they offer such a meeting, to prospective clients, the vast majority put up their hands. I then challenge them as to how long the free meeting lasts. And I continue the challenge if, as often happens, some say “as long as it takes”. I ask: “As long as what takes?”
I point out the futility of offering free advice to non-clients as this sets them up to reject ‘extra fees’ for advisory work over and above the fee quoted for recurring annual services.
And I stress the advantages of the (widely hated – with good reason) Anti-Money Laundering laws. These can be used to justify NOT providing advice at intial free meeting.
It’s interesting Mark – I don’t really worry about giving free advice to non clients, and I’ve rarely found that it results in losing work because the clients reject advisory work. My experience is mre that clients are very wary of these free sessions nowadays in some sectors (mainly consulting and coaching).
I honestly find that the more I give away for free (this blog is an example) – the more clients want to work with me on a paid basis.
I find there’s an art to giving this free, initial advice 1-1.
You have to share something of value – that’s a given. Your free advice must be helpful.
But it’s often best to focus on both helping them with their “next step” problem – and establishing a vision for where they really want to be. that then creates pull for your services to help them get there.
If you can’t create that kind of pull (e.g. if the advice is only one-off rather than related to a bigger goal) then it’ll be difficult to turn our initial free advice into paid work.
Ian