A prospect may be reluctant to commit to a consulting project if they’ve never worked with you. If you offer a service that is time intensive consider alternative ways to deliver the information. Make it easy for your prospects to buy and become your client.
Implement a multi-tiered pricing model:
- Low end: create a do-it-yourself kit that might be accompanied by an hour of free consulting.
- Mid-range: create a webinar or teleclass based boot camp where over a set time period you coach the participants on doing the work themselves. It’s helpful to have the kit already developed as this can be the content part of the boot camp.
- High-end: some of the participants purchasing the kit or the boot camp will eventually decide it’s worth paying for you to do the project. In the meantime you’ve given them an idea of what it’s like to work with you.
The objective is to make the prospect comfortable in purchasing. With the downtime consultants are experiencing, now is a perfect time to develop a multi-tiered pricing model and position yourself to sign on clients once the recession ends.
1Kristin on May 13, 2009 at 4:08 pm:
I agree that prospective clients need choices, and I would add one more recommendation:
ASK the prospect, “what are a couple of options that come to mind for you on how we can support you?” Often clients will spell out the 2-3 options that they would like to consider. This gives you an opportunity to: 1) show that you really listened, and 2) offer one option that incorporates their thoughts and includes your creative ideas on filling a need they might not yet know they have!