Perhaps I’m stupid. Or just naive.
I just spent an hour doing free work for a potential client. He hasn’t paid me anything. He might never pay me anything.
And yet, I watched his current VSL (troubled, to be generous). I then wrote up a nice document with the problems I saw and what I would do instead.
This made me think of one hot summer evening three years ago. I couldn’t sleep. So I snuck out of the bedroom (my girlfriend at the time was sleeping, the heat didn’t bother her). In the living room, I put on a Perry Marshall webinar.
The topic of the webinar was “discovery contracts.” The gist of it was this:
Instead of talking to potential clients to see if you are a good fit to work together… instead of spending time analyzing their situation with nothing in return… instead of coming up with valuable recommendations they can get implemented elsewhere…
… you can do a “discovery contract.”
In a nutshell, as they say, you can do all the stuff I just listed, but charge your potential client for it, up front. You say something like:
“I’ve stopped doing discovery calls with potential clients, but here’s what I can do. I’ll dive into your current copy/product/whatever, and give you my best recommendation of how to proceed, presented in a neat document. You can then go ahead and find the best person to implement those recommendations for you, or you can hire me. I charge my hourly/daily/whatever rate for this kind of discovery project. If you decide to hire me after I finish, I’ll subtract that rate out of my final fee.”
Sounds great, right?
But like I said, I’ve never done anything like this. Maybe it’s stupid. But I have no regrets (not yet).
I’ve had lots of good experiences doing some free work up front for potential clients. And I talk with new clients rarely enough these days that, even if they stiff me out of an hour of work, it’s not the end of the whirl.
But maybe you’re not in the same situation as I am. Maybe you’re constantly talking to potential new clients. Maybe some of them take advantage of you. Or maybe you’re just tired of all the wasted time.
In that case, it might be time to try a discovery contract. You’ll weed out the tire kickers. You might get paid. And the clients who do go for it will likely respect you more.
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