Tweet

Sales Coaching – The Free Consultation is Dead as a Sales Prospecting Introduction

Written by: Cheryl A. Clausen

Article Overview: If you’re a professional service provider one of the things you’ve been told you should do to get clients is offer a free consultation, review, or session of some sort. Once upon a time when this was a new idea it was very effective. It no longer works...

Sales Coaching – The Free Consultation is Dead as a Sales Prospecting Introduction

If you're a professional service provider one of the things you've been told you should do to get clients is offer a free consultation, review, or session of some sort. Once upon a time when this was a new idea it was very effective. It no longer works. I'm going to help you understand why that's true as well as what you can do to make it work in your business. The free consultation concept is common place at this point. It's so common that your prospects recognize it for what it really is... a sales appointment. Just like people don't volunteer for a free insurance review they don't eagerly volunteer for a free consultation.

Here's why. To start with no one wants to volunteer for a sales appointment. Plus when you offer a free consultation early in your sales prospecting process you are making your offer at the point your prospects are most skeptical. Early on you are complete strangers. It's only natural to treat strangers with a high degree of skepticism.

When you offer the free consultation up front rather than creating good will and strengthening your tentative relationship you trigger the defenses of your potential buyer. Once you trigger a prospect's defenses it's very hard to overcome those defenses and earn their trust.

Plus unless you know how to get the greatest return from your investment when you get together for the free consultation you don't get what you want. You give away an hour of work and get nothing in return. Bottom line you invest a great deal of time and effort to get a tiny number of clients from those free sessions.

I'm not saying you shouldn't offer your potential buyers an opportunity to have an experience with you at no cost. What I am saying is you need to rethink when you make that offer and how you make it.

There's a natural process involved in developing relationships. You will dramatically improve your results if you respect that process.

Rather than offering the free session right away only offer it to people who already perceive your value. Then think about the best way to present that offer.

People are less likely to take you up on an offer to have an experience with you if you offer a one-on-one experience first. However, they will take you up on an offer to join a group experience. So you may want to push your free review offer much farther down the sales prospecting funnel and only offer a free one-on-one experience to those you've developed a relationship with and who've voluntarily participated in a group experience.

Related Articles
  Prospecting For New Business - Cold Calling
  What "Better Questioning and Listening Skills" Do Sales Reps Really Need?
  Sales Prospecting Techniques
  Sales Prospecting for Sales Results
  Keep Prospecting Simple©

Article Tags: appointment, bottom line, free consultation, free insurance, free session, free sessions, insurance, professional service provider, prospects, relationship, relationships, skepticism, tiny number, volunteer



Related Forum Posts
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Simple way to avoid Cold Calling - Gary, A chiropractor I work with hates cold calling (me too!) and he uses a technique to warm people up to using his services - it's so simple! In Sales your dealing with 3 pools of people: 1. Strangers 2. Prospects 3. Returning Customers You need to move people from one pool to the next. We'll concentrate on #1 and #2 as it's most relevant to your question. My Clients does the following (you just have to tailor it to your situation - be creative). My Client (we'll call him Bob) Bob leverages his time and resources to only get people that need his offer (pain relief) to put their hand up. Dealing with Strangers can get expensive and they don't like to be told what to do as they have no trust or relationship built with him. So to get Strangers to put their hands up he writes up an offer with a free report on a particular pain relief - let's say lower back pain (note: he can simply just change lower back pain to neck pain and have a new report). and uses multiple marketing vehicles to promote the Free report - magazines, newspaper, forums, postcards, private clinics etc. The only people picking up this information are the very people Bob would like as customers as they have Lower back pain. Bob's Free report ends with him stating his services and includes a Free in-house Consultation with no obligation. You'd be surprised at how easily Bob converts Strangers into Prospects. Note: They become prospects when they ask for the Free Guide and in exchange provide their contact details. This gives Bob unlimited opportunity to contact them for the Free in-house consultation with no obligation to continue using him. At this stage Bob's ability to close the sale lies in his office providing good customer service, Bob's ability to help the prospect and provide value at the free in-house consultation. Notice, he hasn't had to pick up the phone to COLD-CALL his Stranger pool or his Prospect pool. Hope that example helps to increase your prospecting!
New Small Business Topic - Hello everyone, I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section? Here's a list of what we currently have: Angel Investors Branding Bank Loans Business Coaching Business Plan Franchises (New) Insurance Legal Marketing Public Relations Sales Small Biz Loans Venture Capital
Prime Means of Selling - Prospecting and Selling aren't the same. Prospecting is finding the few within a target group who are prime candidates for your service. I don't think everyone will agree on what "prime" means but I'd say if the prospects actively want what you're offering and have the ability to pay for what you're offering then they qualify as "prime".


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Small Business Internet Marketing

Intro to Search Engine Optimization

Leading with Discernment

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.