Following his investigation, which probably took and hour or so online, the potential client decided not to purchase a property all for the right reasons.
So where does this leave the Architect? Perhaps 2 hours down for travel time and a 1hr meeting and then an hour or so of research online. This may well have amounted to £200 - £250 of his time, unpaid!
Is this right or wrong?
I know that we certainly offer a free consultation simply as a way to show our potential clients about the issues that face them if they do embark on their project but there is no doubt that this time out of the office mounts up during the course of a year. So how do we stop it?
I don't have the answer but it surely needs to be something across the industry. It needs to be a 'mechanism' which is policed from on high and ultimately sets a basic fee level for this 'free consultation' process.
Alternatively, we just charge for it and agree to spend 2-3hours with the client and maybe even provide some on site sketches and ideas allowing them to understand in more detail what is or is not possibe.
We will win some appointments this way but the fear is that we will lose more appointments that we win and we need as many appointments as possible in today's economy to secure the confidence of as many clients as we can.
Is there a right or wrong answer to this one?
Please post your thoughts below.
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Kenneth
ReplyDeleteFrom time to time we offer "Free" consultations however, they are not the same as the scenario you have outlined. We will go and chat to people about what we do and what they do and, we will outline why social media can help their particular business. Almost always we will show examples that are relevant to the business in question however, we don't actually engage in any work for these businesses until we have presented a proposal and agreed a fee. Some may say this is marketing and not a genuine consultation however, I believe it is and the people we see are usually grateful.
I think what industry and commerce really needs to look what the real cost of "Free"actually is. Too many people are falling into the trap that your example quotes and effectively working for nothing.
Perhaps a good example at the moment is what is happening in the Milk industry. I don't profess to know lots about this but, it would appear to me the whole situation has been caused by supermarkets driving down prices in pursuit of the lowest price on the shelf. This may appeal to some shoppers however, when it starts to threaten the livelyhood of milk producers they start to take a different view.
Last week the Herald ran an article about the sharp increase in demand for doorstep deliveries even though the milk is considerably more expensive - they want to know that their purchase is being fair to the farmers.
Let's face it, supermarkets treat milk as a loss leader to get people through the doors. In striving for the cheapest price they have shown complete disregard for their suppliers - this simply isn't right.
Going back to your post, I think there will always be people around who are willing to "buy" clients by giving services away free but, it is not a sustainable business model - I just hope they don't expect us to cry over their spilt milk.
I've actually met many accountants recently who offer a free upfront meeting too. Perhaps this is becoming more standard practice throughout many industries.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if my milk man would give me free milk just to see if I like it?
Interestingly we were asked by a local developer to provide assistance with getting a 150 house development through plannnig. The land is not allocated as residential in the local plan so there are no guarantees of achieving planning. The developer suggests that we work at risk and then we would be awarded and inflated fee of say x3 for accepting some risk.
ReplyDeleteI suggested that we could do a development whereby the initial works would be at cost with a reduced profit margin should planning be granted as this would be a fair win/win situation.
My offer was not accepted. They had other architects waiting in the side lines to undertake the works at risk. I assume this was a very large practice.
It seems that this route is becoming more common for the larger sites and developers to put most of the risk to others until such times as a site a. has planning permission and b. is sold on to a national builder.
Sorry but we do not have the luxuary of time on our hands. 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week and if we are not being paid, atleast something to cover our time, we would as well be on the golf course.
I am grateful for the offer but it was not attractive to us at the end of the day.