The following is taken from David’s interview with Philip Cohen in 10 Super Coaches.
Do you recommend offering free coaching?
Offering free coaching is one of the best techniques a new coach has to fill their practice. I suggest offering a free coaching session to anyone who is willing to take advantage of it. It’s a great way for a prospect to experience coaching and for the coach to get practice.
After the first session, I suggest the coach does what ever is necessary to fill their practice. Sometimes that means offering free coaching for several weeks or months, however I prefer the coach offers coaching at a reduced rate instead of coaching for free.
It’s important that the coach tell the client at the beginning of the relationship the amount of their usual fee and how long the reduced coaching will last.
The following is taken from David’s interview in 10 Super Coaches.
Do you recommend offering free coaching?
I do recommend offering a free initial session, I think that’s quite smart. This isn’t like the profession of being a doctor where people are looking for you already and they’ve been to a doctor twenty times in their life.
This is a profession that a lot of people don’t know about and they may not trust yet until they’ve experienced it, so I think offering a free session makes a lot of sense. A lot of businesses give a free consultation, so whether or not you call it a free coaching session, or a free consultation, at least have a ten-minute chat to find out what their goals are and to explore ways that coaching could help them.
If you can help them find their goals, if you can help them get clear on what they really want to have in their life, then that’s going to inspire them. They’re going to be excited when they get present to that. The next thing they need to see is that working with you is going to help them get that. So if you get those two things covered – that they get inspred about their goals and the could see how coaching could help, then chances are you’re going to have a client.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Rachel Pryor in 10 Super Coaches.
Do you recommend offering free coaching?
I offered free coaching to my first 3 clients, for 3 months, and they helped me to identify the documentation I needed for my practice. After 3 months, I found I began to resent giving away for free, so I stopped. I also occasionally offer free coaching in return for some service, however this is not very effective for me.
Never get into a situation when you have offered free coaching without a limit on the timescale.
