How to Avoid Giving Away Free Consulting



How to avoid giving away free consulting service to prospective clients is a very tricky business. In the field of consultation it is a part of the business and a learning experience that everyone goes through.



Your consultation always leads the clients to critically analyse you in the first meeting to know what kind and level of service you provide and as to what is the potential worth of hiring you. However, it sometimes just leads to clients wanting you give and spend a lot more time with them in consultation that they are not going to pay for.



When meeting the client for the first time always follow the policy of K.I.S.S to keep it short and simple. Do not maximise the duration of the meeting to anything more then half an hour or so. It should be just an introductory meeting making you and client familiar to each other and letting you and client know about the problem they have and the kind of service you can deliver.



However it might generally lead, during the course of the meeting, to you having unwittingly provided them more than a page full of ideas which would have otherwise been provided after you are hired. This happens mainly because you are afraid of loosing a prospective client and he knows it and that is why clients are sometimes successful in taking the advantage.



However, it is necessary that you give him a couple of ideas for the issue that he has right now so he gets the idea of his services. It is very important that you do not just sit in the answering seat and that you too ask as many question as you can, so as to know and solve the problem much faster and easier in a better way.



First meeting is generally formal then the second one and thus the comfort rate regarding probing too much becomes a bit tacky. One needs to be smart as to handle it wisely and at the same time ask many open minded question to get to know the problem better.



Never be too friendly and let the other person know that you are a thorough professional and not into monkey business. Do not let him take undue advantage of you being the service provider. Offer him a general idea as to the way you work and the outline of the ideas but do make sure he gets the idea that he gets the whole cake only when he buys it.



Regarding friends and family have your own policy to follow if the service is asked for free. So, it is seen that it all depends upon the way you handle the situation and apply the cunning tactics of being thorough professional at good use.