Every day I see coaches offering free coaching sessions and I just want to tell them to STOP! This is because offering free services is not a good way to get clients. Your time is valuable and you should only offer your coaching services to people when you are getting paid for them.

“But Biana” – I have heard many of my clients say when I told them not to offer free coaching sessions – “if we don’t offer a free coaching session, how do we find out I and the potential client are a good fit?”

This is a great question! It is important to make sure that there is a good fit for the two of you to work together. I recommend that instead of offering free coaching you offer a free “Getting To Know You Consultation” to people who are interested in your coaching services. Keep the session short, about 30 minutes and pre-qualify your clients before talking to them. Your time is valuable, so doing the pre-qualification work will help you see who is serious about working with you.

If you are not doing it yet, ask your potential clients to fill out a pre-consult questionnaire for me to get to know them better. Doing this also shows a commitment and interest from their side.

But what helped me even more to NOT offer any free services was creating products – E-books, Home Study Guides, Members-Only Web Site and Teleseminars.

When I get e-mails from prospective clients asking about my services, many times I can tell that the one-on-one service may not be appropriate for them. However, an e-book or some other product might be very useful.

When I am able to offer my products to people who can’t afford my services, or are on the fence about them, I am able to generate revenue from the situations that I would not be able to get anything out of if I only had my services to offer.

If you are a coach who offers ONLY services, I strongly recommend to look into creating multiple streams of income by creating and selling products in addition to services.
My Complete Step By Step Information Products Guide shows you a step-by-step process for creating e-books, teleseminars, members-only web sites, special reports and other products. You can get it at https://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zinfo

Biana Babinsky

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Digital Products, Information Products, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Coaching, Market Your Expertise, Multiple Income Streams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.