A common practice in the professional services industries is to offer a free Discovery Call. “For their convenience” you typically make it 15 or 30 minutes. The goal of this call is to discover whether you and the prospect are a good fit to work together.

No solutions given, no sales pitches or presentations. Just a “get to know you” session to see if the conversation ends there or if it makes sense to move the relationship along.

But many would-be prospects don’t take us up on this Discovery Call because they’re convinced that a “quick call” will be devoid of any real value, and will include an aggressive sales pitch.

Another avenue to explore is to offer a modified consultation appointment for free.

Instead of a 15-minute Discovery Call, think 45 minutes to an hour of real counseling and deeper exploration.

Why on earth would we offer that for free instead of getting paid?

Before we get to the why, here’s the how:

  • Offer it only a few times a year. 2 to 4 times a year makes it meaningful without seeming that you’re always open to a free session.
  • Only one free session per potential client. If you had a free session in Q1 you don’t get to ask for another one in Q3. Anything beyond the first session goes to your regular paid offers.
  • Be strict about the length of the meeting. Common is 45 minutes to an hour. When the clock is approaching the end time, thank your prospect and respectfully end the meeting.
  • Do give advice and direction for free, but they can’t have it all at no-cost. Decide ahead of time what is appropriate to discuss at the complimentary meeting and what you must hold back for a paid session.

For example, at a free session, I might advise you to send a newsletter no more than once a month, and focus the content on your unique value and the main challenges you solve. What I won’t do for free is to brainstorm a content calendar for you.

Now onto the Why? Why on earth am I giving any advice, direction, intelligence for free? There are 3 HUGE reasons you want to do this.

  • It helps you get to know your best prospect better. This is your chance to ask them plenty of questions, dig deep about their challenge, why it hasn’t been solved, what they’ve tried in the past, what options are they weighing? Record the meeting or take notes. This is a learning opportunity for you – it’s going to direct your future marketing content. Basically, without realizing it, your would-be prospects are feeding your content calendar.
  • It helps you evaluate your own offers better. What are people asking for? What are they not interested in? if you offer 5 things but your free consults point to 3 items they consistently want, feel free to toss out the other 2 that are collecting dust. Your prospects are helping you de-clutter your business offerings. Why waste time marketing services no one appears to be asking for?
  • It helps you discover new possible services or offers you didn’t realize people wanted. If your free consults reveal that people want or need services you don’t currently offer – ask yourself – can I offer this? What would it look like if I added this service that people are already requesting?

What you’re receiving far outweighs the “cost” of giving away an hour of your time.

2 More Big Reasons

Grow your email list: Offering the free hour on your website makes them fill out a written request so now you’re gathering their info for your email list, growing it organically. Make sure to blast this free offer on all your socials, and direct them to your website, to grow traffic on all the channels.

Open the door to new prospects: A free hour helps prospects reach out to you as a starting point who otherwise may never have contacted you. Sometimes fear of aggressive sales tactics keeps a new prospect away. Removing that barrier may invite them in gracefully.