How can you afford to give away free consultations?

A friend who we did a consultation with a few months ago recently thanked me again and told me that she was still getting so much out of what we did for her. She said “How can you afford to give that service away for free?”

We offer this initial free consultation to anyone who may be interested in using our service and who wants to understand better how we can help them in their business.

In practical terms, we take half an hour to discuss your business, where you are struggling, what you would like to achieve and what you need to put in place to succeed. We then followup with a written outline of options for practical systems and how Coastal VAs can help.

In my friend’s case, she is just starting out and many of the solutions and suggestions we provided she is going to implement herself. So her question makes sense… “What’s in it for Coastal VAs?”

We actually get a huge amount out of each consultation we do. It is different for each one, but as an example, this is what we got from this consultation….

1. We may get future work

In her planning and thinking about her new business, my friend has said that there are lots of places where she thinks “Well, I can get Coastal VAs to help with that…”

2. We understand better what people need

This case was a beautiful example of this. A week after we did this consultation, we connected with another person who has a consulting business that is a few years old and really wanted to improve his online presence and marketing. We sent him an email saying “hope it goes well and, just in case it is useful, here are some tips we recently gave someone else about online marketing for a consulting business”.

This led to a free consultation with this new person and resulted in them signing up with us as a client. Excellent!

3. We get referrals

After each consultation, there is one more person out there who really understands what Coastal VAs can offer. This often leads to them pointing a friend or colleague in our direction.

4. We recycle

Our outline of solutions for my friend became a blog post about starting a business and where to start with online marketing. Nothing is wasted at Coastal VAs!

So, if you would like a free consultation with us, please don’t hesitate to ask. We are happy to help.