I'm not a fan of two hour long free coaching
sessions.
I know some people in the coaching industry talk them up, but I've seen a lot of coaches burned out from them (one spent about 200 hours one summer doing these free sessions, with no results).
The gurus promoting them tell you to coach someone for free for a few hours, knock their socks off and then they'll be so happy that they'll rush to hire you and will send every Tom, Dick or Harry that they know over to work with you
too.
There are a few problems with this way of thinking:
1) People don't value what they get for free. To move a prospect from something they didn't have to pay for to a coaching package costing thousands of dollars is a tough sell.
2) If you do indeed "knock their socks off", there's a good chance that the person will feel as though they got everything they needed from the free call, so
there's no need to pay you to do more of them ("This was great, I'm all good - thanks!")
3) Your time is valuable and by giving it away for nothing you're telling the world that what you're doing isn't valuable. Would a doctor, lawyer, or accountant work for free?
Coaches have the potential to do a lot of good for people, and valuing our work the same as a snotty Kleenex is a poor business
strategy.
What's the alternative?
I prefer to do short discovery calls (max. 30 minutes), where I don't do any free coaching.
While the call does help the person, the goal of it is to see if we're a fit to work together going forward (where - gasp! I actually get paid).
I save time, and I'm betting that my conversion rate is a heck of a lot higher than those giving
away the two hour free marathon sessions.
If you'd like to learn how I structure my initial calls (plus get a bonus that you can put next to your computer to help during all of your calls with prospects) you'll want to get the April issue of the Secret Coach Club newsletter.
If you use what I teach, you won't struggle on initial calls with prospects ever again.
The deadline to get it is this
Saturday at midnight EST, and you can now get a subscription for 58% off the usual price at:
Marc