Maraia's Rainmaking Blog

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Can I Take Your Service For A Test Drive?

One of the beautiful things about the nature of our coaching services is it’s very easy to let prospects try out our service before making a hiring decision.  We wish more prospects would do this when they’re trying to decide between two or more coaching organizations.  Doing a test drive allows us to exploit our extraordinary quality advantage over our competitors.  We have definitely noticed the “flight to quality” that has happened during the economic meltdown of the past 18 months and that works in our favor.  Doing a test drive also lowers the prospective client’s risk of making a poor decision because they experience the value we deliver in a free 30 minute phone call.  There are way too many coaching organizations who can talk a good game but their coaching isn't on par with ours.  

We recently allowed a prospective client to take advantage of our coaching test drive.  The CMO was a champion for hiring us, but she couldn’t get firm leaders to give the proposal we’d sent a serious look.  They jumped at the offer for the free test drive and we set it up.  The leaders of the firm were able to observe as I coached one of their junior partners.  This young partner was very engaged and it allowed the leadership team at the firm to see the value that coaching can provide in a 30 minute time span.  It led to us getting hired.  
 
It made me wonder why law firm’s and other professionals don’t offer something similar.  It’s very doable with just a little thought.  In fact, David Maister tells the story in his podcast series of one enterprising trust and estates lawyer who did just that with him when he needed one.  [Note: David Maister has available on iTunes over 100 free podcasts!!  Talk about demonstrating value!!  If you want to hear him tell the story in his own words download the podcast called, “The Trusted Advisor.” ] He needed to hire a lawyer to probate a relatives will.  He’d spoken to a handful of estate planning lawyers and was put off by each lawyers sales pitch until he happened upon a lawyer who asked if he knew anything about probating a will.  When David told him no, this lawyer sent him a document that answered a host of questions about probating wills.   Not surprisingly, David hired him immediately.  No need to give prospective clients the whole enchilada, but it’s amazing how much value you can provide to a prospective client when you take the time to understand what they really need and value.
 
For more information on the topics covered in our workshops, please have a listen to this podcast we recorded for one of our clients.  And as always I invite you to pick up the phone and give me a call (303-791-1042).
 

 
Mark
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