If you are under the illusion that giving your time away for free somehow means you are crap at your job, then it’s time to get your head out of the sand and wake up to the value of discovery calls and taster sessions.
Yep. You heard me. The value of them.
Let me set the scene for you. You've been to a networking meeting, and you've had a great initial conversation with somebody in one of the 10 minute appointments. The person you have been talking to sees the potential for that conversation to go further, so the invitation normally goes something like this :
I'd love to carry on the conversation outside of this meeting - shall we arrange a one to one outside the meeting? I'll send you some dates and times, blah, blah, ….
The trouble is that these one to ones outside of meetings tend to run on and on and on and on, and the last time I checked, time was money when you're running your own business.
Those out of networking conversations also provide an ideal platform for the tyre kickers. You know the ones I mean, the ones who want to “pick your brains”, or “just have a quick question”, or “just want a quick bit of advice”. You get the idea .
Those conversations are unlikely to go anywhere - all that person is wanting to do is to get your advice and experience without having to pay for it, and since when was that a good business idea?! Giving away some of your time for free doesn't cheapen your offering or service, in fact what it does is it allows you to make sure that you are onboarding people to your business without wasting your valuable time.
If you offer personal services like coaching it's really important to have that initial onboarding conversation to make sure not just that you are the right fit for your potential client, but that they are the right fit for you too. You need to have that initial conversation to make sure that they understand exactly what they're going to get from you, how you can help them, and so they get an idea about how you work and how you could work for them. There needs to be a good fit between you and your customer. That’s why we try clothes on before we buy them!
And here's the really interesting thing. If you offer free taster sessions, discovery calls or whatever you decide to call them - by the time somebody has booked one of those with you, they have already gone 50% of the way to deciding that they want to work with you.
It's not just your time that's valuable, it's their time too. By offering a small amount of your time for free, you are using that time to have a focussed conversation about how you can help somebody and what they need to do to work with you. By booking that taster session or discovery call with you that potential client is already willing to hear about how you can help them and in fact that taster session or discovery call rapidly becomes your sales pitch. You have 15 minutes to knock their socks off and make them feel like not working with you would be the biggest mistake they could ever make.
Giving up 15 minutes of your time to have those conversations could be the difference between signing up your super client, or simply signing up anybody with a pulse who has an open wallet.
The trick about successful taster sessions or discovery calls is finding the right balance between how much time you give away for free, how much advice and guidance you give away for free, and what kind of call to action you have at the end depending on how the conversation goes. A free taster or discovery session shouldn't really be more than around about 15 minutes - 30 minutes tops - any more than that and you're heading into consultancy time and that really does need to be billable. The last time I checked I was running a business , and businesses need to earn money.
So pack your taster session or discovery calls with great content. Think carefully about the questions you want to ask if you're looking to sign up a new client, think about the advice and guidance that you could share after the taster session with downloadables, tip sheets, blog content and social channel content too. Make the focus of your session all about how you can help them. And then don't be afraid to ask the question at the end. This is why your call to action is really, really important.
If your taster session or discovery call has gone really well and that person is giving you the signals that you recognise are the signals you need to get them to agree to work with you - then ask them! Don't beat around the bush!! - be clear about what the next step is - something simple and direct that allows you to get them on board quickly simply and with no faff.
If that taster session takes a different path and the person that's booked with you isn't ready to start working with you for whatever reason, then also make sure that you've got some great content that you can point them towards afterwards , or an online community they can come and be part of, somewhere where you can send them where they don't disappear from your radar and you can nurture that conversation to potentially get them on board at a later date.
If you exchange your time for money, free taster sessions or discovery calls can be the difference between signing up the right clients & signing up the wrong ones . You can book a taster session with my right here.
Free taster sessions or discover equals don't cheapen your offering, it shows you're serious about working with the right people for you, your brand, and your business.
To find out more about how KAPOW! can help you, you can see what people are saying at Why Choose KAPOW?