Why You Shouldn’t Be Offering A “Free Consultation”

Five reasons why you need to abandon the Free Consultation:

#1 Sales People

What is a consultation but a conversation with an expert? In these modern times of online shopping the significance of a conversation to a potential buyer has reduced significantly. 59% of people, over half the population would prefer to make a purchase without having to interact with any member of a sales team.

People are so against communicating that ordering food can now be completely done from an app with little to no human interaction.

Those who do reach out to a sales person have already done 70% of the research into the product from information gathered online and product reviews.

#2 Too Formal

The internet is an informal place, five minutes prior to a user clicking your site or seeing your ad they could have been watching cat videos. To not only survive but thrive online you need to adopt an informal tone and consultation is anything but casual.

Formal doesn’t always portray professionalism and without a friendly face and smile to combine with the words ‘Free Consultation’ it can be very intimidating to visitors.

So to draw in and engage your audience use friendlier more casual language to create a more personal message. Be creative.

#3 Free?

Advertising anything that’s ‘Free’ implies that previously it wasn’t. Lawyers, private doctors and other industries that do charge for consultations can get away with offering a consultation as free as that would be an incentive.

But the majority of businesses don’t need to advertise that the conversation/ consultation is free because it’s already expected to be, if anything you are hurting your credibility by unintentionally adding a cost value to your consultation.

That’s not to say free cannot be used successful if you have the right incentive such as “Free design and planning for your new kitchen” which is essential what you was offering with a free consultation.

#4 Be Different

It’s easy to be boring on the internet and blend in with all the other businesses all doing the same old thing, seems as if though everything has been done before… So if you come up with something new and different even if it’s just a little thing like rewording ‘Free Consultations” it won’t be soon forgotten and will set you apart from your competition.

Doing something different also applies to the alternative you choose for your ‘Free Consultation’ because you won’t be the only business trying something new.

Use this as an opportunity to express that your business is both unique and better than your competition.

#5 What Are You Actually Offering?

By now the answer to ‘should you be offering a free consultation?’ is going to be NO, but that opens up the new of question ‘what should you be offering?’

Consider what you are offering because chances are it’s not even consultation to begin with, by discovering what your really contributing to your audience will make thinking up a creative alternative to the standard ‘Free Consultation’ easier.

Talking about designs becomes ‘Free Design and Planning”. Offering a demo could be ‘Schedule Your Demo Today’.

Anything you think of will be better than ‘Free Consultation’