Good idea or we will be ripped off?

There's nothing wrong with providing value for your services. Perhaps you can figure out a way to obtain leads by offering 1 or 2 people completely FREE service.

My girlfriend just started her Health Coaching Business and she has charged for the intial consultation and their next session is FREE. I guess you just have to work on the concept or model that will work best for you.....................and your partners

Cheers!
Terri

If you need the business, then do what you have to do.
I know that in the IM world giving stuff for free has become king to build your list. But if you are talking traditional off line consulting services, I'd be careful. In my industry, everyone's couponing these days. It turns your business into a commodity and brings prices down for everyone. Also, with free or $$ off offers, you tend to attract bargain shoppers who rarely turn into quality repeat customers.
Is there one thing you can offer free to everyone to attract them to your consulting services? Again if we're talking traditional consulting, have thought of doing a seminar for the local chamber or rotary?

It depends on Why you are offering your services for free. If you want some testimonials or reviews, I dont see whats wrong with it. But if you are just giving away free services, people will most likely abuse it.

I am not sure if you are talking about offline marketing or online marketing but if you were giving a free consult for offline marketing, many people will not have the time to do the google places listing, seo, video marketing and other methods themselves and after you explain to them ways they can have more of an internet presence may then want to hire your company to do the work. Many businesses give free consults to have clients or customers get to know them and feel more comfortable about doing business with them.

Debbie

Sounds like a great plan to get people interested in your service. Perhaps you could provide one free consulting session and then charge them for them after. This would get people initially involved.

Hey guys, thank you very much for the feedback.
I am talking about online services, we have been doing this for a long time, too long maybe so we are good at what we do, the thing is, we are trying to focus other target now and me and one of my partners believe that giving free services (limited) is going to be good... the question is, how many ppl will actually recommend us, even if the work great...
ideas?

Another point of discussion was the fees was more a war other than a discussion actually
Since offline work is quite different from 100% online, how much do you think we should charge per page or site?
suggestions?

I just read something by Dan Kennedy where he talked about businesses getting lots of ad agencies to work on spec. Then they'd have thousands of dollars worth of free campaigns that they could hand off to someone else.

This has become common in offline consulting too, at least where I operate. You don't want to become known as the place where you can get it for free. And if you train people to under value what you offer you'll have a hard time ever getting what you're worth. Even some of my paying clients are slow to pay if I even start the work first.

Why not try group consultations and trainings? Give them some handouts (cheat sheet or a report) that they can refer to afterwards. Depending on the niche you could charge just enough for them to take showing up seriously.

I also did some business at cost when I started my former gourmet dessert business. Didn't work there either. No referrals, no testimonials, and hard to please customers. So I got an endorsement from a major department store, tripled my prices, and had customers up the wazoo. Then I wrote a little book about how I did it that still generates a few restaurant consultants gigs for me - 12 years later.

Big corporations tend to respect free consultations and since the contracts are large it's more worth the time investment.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,

Brenda

I would limit the time ... i.e., 10 hours free, rather than just giving free consulting services without any restrictions on how long they are free.

I think it's a good idea. Let's face it, people will always want things for free, be it products, or as in this case, services.

What's more, you can make this a "time-limited" offer and use it to get customers, or potential-customers names and in so doing, grow your database/client-list.

Free is great...I think basing a business around free is super, super smart and can potentially make you a ton of money. (Think "The Challenge"...great example of how to kill it by being free)

Still...have a plan or a way to make money. I'm not sure I like advertising consulting for "free" to start as I think you might get a ton of tire kickers and the participants might not respect the information as much because it's "free". What about a giveaway where the winner(s) get free consulting?

Anyway you could make it and KEEP it free, based on the tools required that will go along with the consulting?