How 30-Minute Free Consultations Get You Good Clients

Several years ago, I began offering potential clients a free, 30-minute call phone call with me to talk about their business. No sales pitch, no pressure, just a 30-minute conversation about anything they wanted to talk about. I make it easy for people to sign up for these sessions. In this episode of The RocketGirl Show, I'll share with you how 30-minute free consultations can get you good clients.

TRANSCRIPT

My name is Belinda Wasser also known as RocketGirl. Today, we're going to talk about how 30-minute free consultations gets you really good clients.

Years ago, I decided to start offering 30-minute free consultations for anyone who is interested in finding out whether or not we are a good fit to work together. And the first thing I did was I made it really easy for people to sign up for these consultations. I put them on I put a link in my email. I have a link on every page of my website at the bottom. I have a link also in my email newsletter that goes out on a regular basis. 

So I make it very simple for them to schedule time with me. The other thing is I also make it clear. This is not a sales call. This is not me trying to sell them my services. It's something very different and the result is, is that it really takes the pressure off and I'm able to discover a few things that I want to tell you about today. 

One thing I do when people set up consultations is I asked a number of questions. One is how long have they been in business? Second is do they have a website? Who referred them and what they want to talk to me about? So that way I can be a little prepared when we go in. All right. So let's talk about what happens after this 30-minute consultation. I know all about the business that they're in. So typically, you know, I'll ask a few questions. You know, tell me about your business, tell me about what you do. And so at the end of that 30 minutes I know about their business. I also know what they want me to help them with and so this is important because I want to make sure that what they need is something that I like and that I know how to do or that I want to learn how to do. But it's key for me to see myself, you know in the work. Do I want to do this? You know, how do I feel about that? 

The other thing that's really important is you hear stories about people that I've worked with in the past. So for example, big red flag if someone says to me, I hired a virtual assistant and it was a disaster or I hired a virtual assistant and then they say something negative about them. Now, I know that every relationship isn't great, but how they take ownership for that and how they handle it is very telling. So I love to hear that, those stories. 

And on the flip side, there are times when I'll ask them if they've ever worked with the virtual assistant and they'll say yes. She left she had a baby or you know, she moved away and decided not to do this work or she got a job, we loved her and that's why we're looking for someone else. That is a great phrase to hear, a set of phrases to hear for sure. 

Then I figure out whether I like them. It's really important that I like my clients and at the end of this, not only is the potential client deciding if they're going to work with me. I am very much deciding if I'm going to work with them and I use key phrases during the conversation. So for example, if they asked me, do you know how to do X Y and Z? I would say yes, and I would be happy to help you with that if we decide to work together. Then toward the end, if they're a good fit, I'll probably say something like I love to work with you. I think we would really I think we would work well together. Okay. So 30-minute consultations, really good idea. You can automate them by using something like Acuity or Calendly or Time Trade right on your website. If you don't have a website, all of those tools can be used separately without a website as well on a landing page. 

Okay, before we go today, I want to make sure that you all know about my free online classroom. It's a community of over 12,000 people who are either virtual assistants now or are thinking about it. Come on over and join us. There's tons of trainings just like this, tons of blog posts, community, friendship, a place to get your questions answered. So please join us over there. All you have to do is type "The Virtual Assistant Connection" in the search bar at the top of Facebook. We're also on Instagram and I love to have you check us out and follow us at The Virtual Assistant Connection as well. So have a great rest of your day. Thanks for watching the RocketGirl Show. I'm Belinda Wasser signing off till next time. Bye.