When a potential client calls or messages you and asks what your fees are you may be tempted to do one of two things. The first is to send back a ball park of what your fees are and the second is to suggest you get on a quick “free discovery call” to talk it through. Both of these strategies are costing you time AND clients.
So here’s what I suggest you do instead.
First don't just tell them your fees and don't waste your time on free 'discovery calls' or offer free design consultations. You'll end up spending half your day on calls or in free (time wasting) meetings and most of them won't go anywhere.
Serious clients (i.e. those that aren't just tyre kickers or time wasters) are more than happy to spend some money on an initial meeting with you.
So when someone calls or messages or emails you, don’t just tell them your fees
Example: “Thanks for your message. My fee is normally $XX. Let me know if that works for you?”
Say this instead:
Thanks for your message and interest in my design services.
Before I can set a fee I need to understand more about your project and make sure we are a good fit to work together.
All my projects start with an initial design consultation, which you can book on my website. During this 90 minute (or so) meeting I will take a look at your project and we can talk about a whole range of things e.g. scope, lifestyle, functionality, budget, aesthetic and so on. While I am there I will give you lots of initial ideas and inspiration that you can take away from the meeting as well. The consultations allows me to understand the full scope of your project and accurately prepare a fee proposal for the work you want to do.
If you think that would be a helpful starting place, the fee for my initial consultation is $XX. I only offer a few consultations each week and these book up a few weeks in advance. You can check the available times here [insert booking + payment link e.g. Calendly].
If they don’t want to pay you for your initial design consultation then MOVE ON.
Genuine clients that aren’t time wasters won’t have any problems paying for an initial design consultation.
As you get busier and more experienced and you have more inbound leads coming in you won’t want to take all projects and will want to start being more selective about the projects you work on.
So at that point you may like to add an additional part to the message you send back.
Something like this...
Thanks for your message and interest in our design services.
Before we can set a fee we would need to understand more about your project and make sure we are a good fit to work together. But to give you a general guide I normally only work on projects that have an overall budget of $X or more.
If your project fits that range then the best way to get started is to book an initial design consultation via our website. During this 90 minute (or so) meeting I will take a look at your project and we can talk about a whole range of things e.g. scope, lifestyle, functionality, budget, aesthetic and so on. While I am there I will give you lots of initial ideas and inspiration that you can take away from the meeting as well. The consultations allows me to understand the full scope of your project and accurately prepare a fee proposal for the work you want to do.
[...then continue the rest of the message from above]
Providing a minimum project budget will immediately weed out bad fit clients so you don’t waste time attending design consultations that aren’t right for your business.
Once you get too busy to meet with all potential clients that message you (which will happen as your business and brand grows) then make sure to set a minimum project budget. This will allow you to take on better projects over time and keep increasing the calibre of your client base.
But when you’re first starting you won’t need that extra statement as you’ll likely take on most projects in order to gain:
- some revenue!!
- experience
- images for your social media/website
- referrals to more clients
If you start charging for all your initial meetings with clients and then you do a good job of pitching yourself and soft selling during that meeting you'll find that you can convert 95% of those potential clients into full projects.
The reason I know this strategy works is because it's exactly the way I built my own design business. :)
