2 Responses to “My good heartedness, or: I consulted another client free of charge”

1. Allan Sabo
   April 28th, 2008 - 6:12 pm

   Lars,

   Noticed your posts via the Plaxo Pulse, apparently we bong to a common group.

   Having been marketing over the web for real commercial purposes for over 15 years now, and during much of that time sold services via the “consultation” method I have concluded the following with respect to this issue:

   1) In an attempt to “reason” with prospects about anyone who is a solo consultant, I wrote an e-course called “share the work - grow your business” (which currently is being re-vamped) at http://www.sharethework.biz

   2) I went through a “phase” where I started to refuse “consultations” and created an “introductory package” that clearly defined the clients issues - almost like an RFP (Request For Proposal).

   I started doing this for a few reasons.

   (A) Many small business prospects that are cash strapped, will never actually pay for services. Instead they will hop from consultant to consultant sucking out as much as possible and either attempting to implement on thier own, or resorting to hiring an intern, whom they download thier newly gotten knowledge to who then “figures-out” the implementation. Sadly, there is seemingly and endless supply of new consultants eager and willing to spill the beans over a cup of java!

   (B) This process served to weed out those seeking to “steal” from us consultants, and established an early paying-client relationship whereby I can quickly (and affordably) establish the intangible value to my prospect.

   (C) Believe it or not, charging a small up front fee actually improved my prospects perveption of my expertise and credibility… Thus, to further aid this, I began creating some short articles, email courses, podcasts that I personally distributed to those propects proving they were serious.

   However, in the past year, the market has shifted so dramatically in giving the store away for free, that I am now readying my latest strategy. I’ll be moving to a free advice and recommendation platform. The key for me is to leverage my efforts.

   My plan is to offer free advice to everyone, but that advice will no longer happen in a one-on-one scenario. (If you closing ratio is 25%, then you have to not only spend time to fill the pipeline with 4 prospects,, but then deliver a free consultation with each and every one of them - this adds up to a lot of spent, uncompensated time that someone - eventually - has to pay for).

   The flaw with the 1-on-1 is that there is no leverage. You may do a great job with 2 or even 3 of those prospects, but if only 1 in 4 convert - to live, you’ll be forced to raise your rates. (I call this - trying to earn a living on too few clients)

   But consider this - What if in helping 1 prospect, 5, 15 or maybe even 40 propects all could benefit? You establish credibility and expertise, and if your conversion rate drops to 20% - that could mean 1,3 or possibly 8 new clients are acquired.

   Now instead of dropping rates to attract business, you’ll be raising rates - but not to out of the necessity to survive, no, because the available time you have has become scarce and limited pushing your rates naturally go up as demand for you increases.

   Interestingly enough, I came across this blog post a couple weeks ago by Kevin Kelly(http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php) one of the founders of Wired Magazine. It states that all consultants (or “creatives”) like ourselves need is 1000 true fans where we “leverage” our craft, skills, talents, personalities and interests to deeply engage with just 1000 other people who on average pay us the equivalent of one days wages to deliver that value to them.

   I see that recently, there been some debate on the idea, but I for one believe that if you juggle the numbers - there is a modest living to be made doing what you love.

   Now - let go build our fan base

   Allan

2. CHARLIE
   July 21st, 2010 - 6:17 am

   
   

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