Consultants: How to Deal With People Who Want Free Consulting

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Recently Tino Marquez asked the Indiana IT Pros LinkedIn group this question:

“How do you deal with clients that want FREE consulting?”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if you give people a free sample of your expertise that they will hire you for larger projects. In many cases, about all you are likely to get is a free lunch.  The best way I’ve found to deal with freeloaders is to change the game by making the purpose of your conversation clear.

If you are on a sales call, the conversation should be about “why hire you” rather than “what will you do to solve my problem, step by step”. If a potential client wants to go step by step, then the next question should be, “then can I assume we are ready to move forward?”

If they say yes, then you have a sale. If not, then you simply say, “Unfortunately, I can’t provide that expertise for free… I thought we were discussing hiring my firm to help with your problem. Did I miss something?”   It’s amazing how quickly the conversation will end with people that cannot or will not buy.

As a consultant you have to understand that everyone you meet with in a sales context is not a buyer. The role of any sales interaction is to simply determine if there is a problem you can solve, and if you are the right expert to handle the problem.