In the past year, my wife and I wanted to do some upgrades to our house and searched for contractors to get estimates. To my surprise, many contractors didn’t offer free estimates. They asked for a fee of $50 or $80 or more to provide an estimate, which they would credit back to us if we decided to hire them.
On principle, we rejected these contractors and called others who did things the old-fashioned way, coming out to look at the job and giving us an estimate.
I’m sure the “new age” contractors would say they no longer provide free estimates because of the expense of advertising and hiring salespeople and the like, and that statistically, since most customers who get bids don’t hire them, charging a small fee for an estimate helps defray some of their expenses.
And weed out people who are “just looking” and not committed to getting the work done.
A seemingly logical argument. But the reality is that we called (and hired) contractors who advertised free estimates. We didn’t call or hire ones who didn’t.
I’m sure many customers would say the same thing.
Now, attorneys.
Some offer free consultations (and estimates) and some don’t. It depends on their practice area and market. And legal services have different metrics than contractors, so I’m not going to tell you to do one thing or the other.
but I will tell you to think about it.
Whatever you’ve always done, you might consider making some changes. After all, success in marketing boils down to having more conversations with more prospective clients and you might want to find ways to do more of that.
A different business model might might give you a competitive advantage. It might bring you more clients, decrease your overhead, and increase your (net) income.
On the other hand, it might not.
Attorneys argue that if they provide free consultations, they give prospective clients their legal opinion, and they are entitled to be paid for that.
That’s true. But you know the answer to that.
Give prospective clients enough information and advice to help them see that they have a problem and that you have the solution, but not so much information and advice that they don’t need to hire you.
