Making the Difficult Decision to Charge for Social Media Consultations

Posted by centralpawebster under Sales
From http://strellasocialmedia.com 4358 days ago
Made Hot by: Webdev1 on December 19, 2012 1:09 pm

We give away our time - and expertise - by offering free consultations. But, is that part of the sales process? Find out why we started charge for consultations.

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Comments

Written by lyceum
4352 days ago

Shawn: Adrienne Graham's book started out from an article in Forbes Magazine. Richard Cederquist of ReferensAkademin (Referral Institute) directed me to the article after a discussion on how to charge for your time and knowledge.

Talk to you soon again! :)

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Written by ShawnHessinger
4358 days ago

Rachel,

I feel your pain. When I started the social media and blogging portion of my business, I was determined to focus on demonstrating the value of the services I could provide for clients. As a result, I wanted to take the time to educate people about the true value of those services, so I offered free consultation. The result, unfortunately, was considerable time spent letting others pick my brain only to decide not to hire me in the end. What I found, in fact, was that those who eventually became my clients were fully aware of the value of blogging and social media and didn't need much education. They simply wanted to know how much it would cost.

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Written by ShawnHessinger
4352 days ago

Hi Martin,

Haven't read that one, but it sounds like something I'd like to check out. Heck, it sounds like something I could have written! :)

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Written by lyceum
4352 days ago

Shawn: I can relate very much to your story. I have been there, done that. I want to talk with you more about this topic in the near future.

Have you read Adrienne Graham's book, No, You Can't Pick My Brain. It Costs Too Much! ?

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Written by centralpawebster
4358 days ago

It's a tough field. My prospects have an array of reason for contacting me, but I find I spend a lot of time trying to convince naysayers. At some point, you have to draw the line.

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Written by larryjam
4358 days ago

I think you have made a very good business decision. If you do not value your own time, how can you ask your customers to value your services. I believe that by charging your clients for consultations, they will realize that your time is valuable, and your services will be too. I enjoyed reading your article.

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Written by centralpawebster
4358 days ago

Great point, Larry. Right on target!

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