Free Consultations Blues
Many years ago, let’s say approximately 20 to 25 years ago, when I was first starting out in digital marketing (which for the uninitiated means promoting a business online through the use of deliberate, planned, and applied use of a website, SEO, eCommerce, content marketing, branding, modern design, and a few other options that are necessarily baked-in), I would offer free consultations with potential clients.
Now, “potential” here is the operative word, because until there is a contract and financial commitment in the form of money in the bank, no client is real or with “skin in the game.”
Free Consultation Time Limits
Those consultations could range anywhere from thirty minutes to hours (no kidding).
I was still a struggling college student when I first started out in digital marketing, so although I knew more than the average template installer even back then, I was new to business, management, and project planning for ROI and measuring KPIs (Key Performance Indicators that let you know if you’re really making profits and advances you anticipated).
So I thought offering free consultations was necessary. I saw lawyers offering free consultations and certainly other template installers and some digital marketers, so figured that was a sound practice to take.
But what I didn’t know, and didn’t do, was hurting me.
Unstructured Consultations Are A Child Let Loose in a Toy Store
As you might imagine, over time, I came to realize that unstructured, unguided free consultations were no different than letting a child loose in the world’s largest toy store and instructing the child to go wherever they wanted and select whatever looked good.
We’d talk about their dog, their interests unrelated to business, make more small talk, explain concepts ad nauseam, share tea and cookies, and while we might occasionally enjoy the odd chat, usually a) the potential client was what we in business would term a hobbyist (not fully committed and just toying with random ideas hoping something, some day, might stick), or b) have a business that was so far unprofitable and largely unstructured itself, or c) kicking tires and stuck in a phase of denial.
They were what I later came to call one of the eight types of clients you don’t want to be like if you want to get anywhere.
Eight Types of Digital Marketing Clients You Do Not Want to Be Like and Why
So whatever “skin in the game” there was, was negligible at best. They had nothing to gain because they didn’t know what they were doing at that nascent stage. They had nothing to lose, because again, they had no definitive level of financial commitment (“skin in the game”).
I was essentially sharing what expertise I had back then with potential clients who saw no value in it, couldn’t grasp the concepts I was alluding to (such as SEO leading to increased website visits and thereby increased sales or revenue).
For Example:
I consulted one pair of ladies who wanted to open an online, custom purse store. They had no images or portfolio, had no idea what SEO is (no surprise there), what eCommerce is (ummm…come on), no idea how to budget, and felt that a “free” DIY template could accomplish the equivalent of Amazon or eBay given time.
I consulted a lady with a custom candy online retail outlet with a broken site and broken, unsafe eCommerce function who couldn’t figure out why her site was actually losing money on a monthly basis. Then she explained she had no budget and just wanted to “pick my brain.”
I met a potential client with a dating website and dating business who admitted to me that his site had been hacked after asking bar patrons to offer him help in exchange for beer and cheap food. And he couldn’t understand a) how to fix his problem using his current “business” model, or b) how to find experienced professional-level help so the issues suffered wouldn’t repeat.
I even helped a potential client who was an artist, selling her paintings online, who threatened me with violence through emails and voice messages, after she admitted to me that a) she had no idea why SEO, eCommerce, content, or hosting were necessary and b) she was bipolar and unstable but saw no reason to take her prescribed medications. Of course the threats didn’t stop until local authorities were brought to bear and she was then blocked.
I consulted with a chef who’d been on a major, global television cooking competition program. That chef was known the world over, but had a broken website that quite frankly looked incomplete and unsafe to use and amateurish. The budget was around $1,500 for a custom rebuild that would represent that chef globally, have flawless eCommerce to sell cooking classes, DVDs, regular back-ups, social media, branding, on and on. That “budget” I was told was non-negotiable because their previous “expert” had charged $30,000 USD and since the chef had been burned, they would not budget accordingly ever again, I was told.
I would volunteer to consult with NonProfit Organizations (NPOs) with no experience in marketing whatsoever, no budget, no business marketing collateral prepared in advance, no branding, and no desire to read or learn more, who were wondering why their lives and “business” interests were mired in pain and debt. And they wanted my advice. Then I’d be sad when I realized months later they hadn’t acted on anything I’d advised.
I even came up with an infographic on how to deal with the price-shopping potential client who was a) very common, and b) an everyday occurrence who would demand a price for what was (and is) an ongoing service guiding them toward regularly recurring profits.
(You can see that on Behance, and ImgUR if you don’t see it below.)
On and on the circus marched through the town of my life. The point here is that I was offering up for free to people who saw no value in what I was offering and had in their possession no way to utilize whatever my advice was.
That’s key. I hadn’t screened them for fit before agreeing to actively listen to them and offer up advice in return; and I wasn’t charging for my time and earned experience in the industry. So the predictable outcome was nobody’s fault by my own.
Later, in-between agency jobs, I’d tinker with what I was offering and how (and to whom) I was offering services.
Charging Minimized the No-Show Syndrome
I’d offer free workshops, free web chats, free social media help, on and on. At workshops sometimes attendees who RSVPed would show up, but most of the time only a small percentage of anyone who did RSVP actually would show up – unless I charged for my time and experience. Hello.
Charging dramatically increased a) interest in the topic addressed and b) attendance. People started asking what I looked like, how I was dressed so they could find me quicker. I began wearing my favorite color (you guess what that is) so they could identify me right away in the conference room where my workshop would be hosted. I began to feel better about offering advice, teaching workshops, and slowly began to attract clients with actual businesses and a committment toward turning their failing businesses around.
After a while (and yes, it wasn’t immediate because bear in mind gentle reader that it took time to learn from agencies and the mistakes of other freelancers and apply them to my own organization or lack thereof), I realized that it just wasn’t benefiting me to offer free anything….unless it was heavily structured, guided, screened, and with boundaries, rules and limitations.
Even download forms and checklists and ebooks could (and should) be offered in exchange for newsletter subscriptions or some other higher purpose that served a need (such as gaining subscribers or building revenue or generating social media clicks or insert need here).
Today I offer some minor knowledge on “social” media but it’s conversational and certainly skimming the proverbial surface.
The point however, is that I learnt after a long time of fits and starts, trial and error, that if I were to offer free consultations they’d have to be limited harshly to 15 minutes lest I revert back to small talk unrelated to anything where my experience was relevant and also to focus on the task at hand – what does the potential client need in order to make a decision?
Do they want help, need it, value it, are they committed to paying reasonable industry standard rates to receive and benefit from it? That’s it. That’s all the fifteen minute consult should have been or should be about if offered.
Now yes, you can deviate from that script by describing your sales pitch, mentioning your industry experience and referrals if you like. That, however, should already be on your business website.
You can refer the potential client to your portfolio (which I’m skeptical of, because if the potential client has no experience with design or digital marketing there’s no way for them to put the portfolio into context), asking them how many staff they have and if they have a marketing department, asking them how long they’ve been in business for, who their competitors are (if they know – which believe it or not most small businesses and NPOs have no idea on).
But if you post referrals/references on your site, have a FAQ section on your site (which I may add over time but don’t currently provide as of this writing and is probably my blog more than anything else), have pretty massive experience in your area of expertise, are retired or semi-retired and aren’t necessarily struggling financially, you don’t and probably shouldn’t offer such. Why offer for free what you don’t need to? It wastes time and energy you don’t have to burn. If you offer free consultations (as I do from time to time), it must be structured, guided, and brief, just as it would be if you met someone at a business luncheon.
When You Don’t Need to Offer the 15 Minute Free Consult
When I was starting out I offered the free consultation as I stated previously. Now, as I became more knowledgeable in how larger agencies would structure projects, I realized that I had better structure my own intake process. And part of that intake process was and is the initial free consultation. When reviewing that, I realized what I had to do. I had to stick to why they were contacting me, what their problem was, could I diagnose and fix it reasonably, and then what did they need to know from me to invest for a solution? (I never, ever, discussed technically how I would solve any problems lest the contact very obviously and very clearly become completely lost.) If I stuck to the important list of 4-5 intake questions only, we might go over the fifteen minute mark, but we’d not go too far away from the ranch in so doing.
Summing Up
So often I’d encounter (and still do on a daily basis) businesses and entrepreneurs and service professionals and NPO “founders” with no idea what they’re doing (which is okay) asking for help yet no discernible way to digest and act on the help or commitment to do so.
The difference today is that when I see or hear from these kindly individuals so well-intentioned I may offer a pithy comment online and move on, or I may simply click delete, or just move on unimpressed; with other things to do with my time and limited energy to do it with.
My recommendations for service providers? Offer free 15 minute consults but only with the caveat that it’s heavily structured in advance knowing what to ask. (Are they familiar with what you do? Do they have any need for what you do that’s vital to them, and grasp it or are you busy explaining why what you do matters to someone unlikely to even understand it much less need or use it? Have they used it before and do they view it positively? Do they have financial skin in the game? That is, what happens if they do nothing – which is usually what time-wasters do isn’t it? Are they willing to invest a reasonable industry standard now to solve the problem once and for all or are they just looking for free tips and negotiating through a stage of denial?)
Screen for fit and know how you’re doing it in advance, then have a way to vet, train them in how you work and make decisions you do, how payment works, automate it all, and test it out with a family member. Offer references, testimonials, portolios, ways to pay in advance, automated receipts and book-keeping and scheduling all in advance, or don’t do it at all. If you can handle all of that, the drama begins to fade like so many bad memories.
And if you’re in my shoes, where you’re hyper-experienced and not struggling any longer, know that you don’t have to offer free consultations as a matter of course. You can as an olive branch and because you truly love the work and want to be a force for good, accurate information in the world. Of course, in so doing, some contacts will invariably be spam, phishing attempts, or just business owners or entrepreneurs stuck trying to get unstuck. It’s up to you to guide them toward the Big Offer: Do you want help or do you just want to vent?
To paraphrase Ice-T, play the long game and bet on yourself to win big.
You can also view my infographic illustrating the pros and cons of free consultations here at Behance.