
Recipe: Scheduling Consultations
If you sell high-end products/services, or if your products or services take a lot of explanation, a consultation is always a great way to sell. The direct contact with your prospect improves conversion rates dramatically. As you demonstrate your expertise and help prospects get closer to their goals, they’ll be more inclined to use your services or products.
Content Ingredients
- Consultation Offer Emails
- Pre-qualification Form (Optional)
- Appointment Reminder Emails
- Missed Appointment Emails
- Post Consultation Emails
Processing Time
Between 3 and 4 Weeks.
You’ll want to spend a solid week (2-3 emails) inviting your prospects to sign up for a consultation with you.
Be sure you have plenty of time slots available for those who want to schedule with you. Based on your response, you could be doing consultations back to back for weeks.
You’ll also want to put some effort into following up with your contacts after their consultation. This is a critical time to get them to buy your services or products.
Preparation
The amount of overhead required for each consultation can add up to 3 times as much work as the consultation itself. Before offering a consultation (either call or in-person meeting) to everyone in your database, consider doing 2-3 first…just to see how much time you should be planning.
Tools
Appointment Calendar:
To save yourself time, get appointment calendar software so your clients can sign themselves up for a time that works best for them.
Recommendations:
Survey Collection Software:
If you decide to pre-qualify your prospects before offering the consultation, you’ll need a survey system that can track responses and determine eligible prospects. Otherwise, you’re going to be manually reading through each survey.
Integration Software:
To make sure the marketing around your webinar is seamless you’ll need an integration system to link your webinar software with your automated emailing system. We recommend: Zapier
Step-by-Step Directions
= Campaigns included with our All Access Membership
1. Offer your prospects a consultation with you.
There are 3 places within the customer lifecycle where you might want to offer consultations to your prospects: 1) as a lead magnet, 2) immediately after they opt-in to your marketing, or 3) after they’ve received educational emails from you and need to be enticed to move forward. When you make the offer, be clear about how the consultation will take place (on a call or in person), how long the consultation will last, how much the consultation will cost (free is always very enticing), and what the prospect should be able to accomplish after connecting with you. If you need help creating these emails, you will likely benefit from one of our consultation campaigns:
- Collect and Consult Campaign if you want brand new leads to sign up for a consultation
- Consultation Offer Campaign if you want to offer existing propsects a consultation
2. (Optional) Pre-qualify your prospects.
Consultations are time consuming. Some business owners don’t want to waste their time with prospects who are not a good fit. If you’d like to pre-qualify potential consultation clients, have them fill out a survey prior to their meeting with you. For help with these emails, see our Consultation Pre-qualification Campaign .
3. (Optional) Get qualified prospects to sign up and let unqualified prospects down gently.
Once your prospects fill out your survey, you’ll need to let qualified individuals know how to get signed up for their appointment. And be sure to let unqualified prospects down gently so they’re still willing to come back to you later when they are qualified. For help with these emails, see our Pre-qualified to Consultation Campaign .
4. Schedule the appointments.
The best method for doing this is to use calendar software that lets your prospects sign up for their own appointment time. If you don’t have software, you’re going to need to collect the name of the person who’d like a consultation and manually get them signed up for a time.
5. Remind your prospects of their appointment date and time.
People are forgetful and they get busy. Be sure to remind your prospects frequently of their upcoming meeting, especially if your consultation is a phone call. For help with the reminder emails, see our Appointment Reminder Campaign and our Appointment Reminder – Service Based Campaign .
6. Hold the consultation.
One important thing to note about your consultation…it is not a meeting so you can simply “sell” to your prospect. Your consultation should be packed with great ideas and information that will help your prospect with the challenge they are facing. The “selling” will happen naturally as you demonstrate your skills and build trust. Then, at the end of the consultation, offer them a discount or other incentives for using your products or services to accomplish their goals.
7. Reschedule prospects who miss their consultation.
Many of your prospects won’t show for their appointment. Immediately reconnect with them and get them rescheduled. For help with these emails, see our Missed Consultation Follow-up Campaign .
8. Remind those who attended of your special offer.
Don’t let a great meeting go to waste. Follow up with your prospects shortly after their appointment and encourage them to take the next step in your sales cycle. For help with these emails, see our Post Consultation Follow-up Campaign .
Note: If the next step in your sales cycle is to purchase a coaching course, we have a very specific campaign you may be interested in…Consultation to Coaching Course.
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