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I’m happy to help folks achieve their goals, in fact it’s why I do what I do. However in an effort to manage my time better I’m taking a new line on the requests to “grab a coffee and chat.” Perhaps I should explain.

If you offer any consultative services you likely face the challenge of maintaining the perceived value of your time and advice. This challenge exists for many reasons, one of them pertains to the apparent ease at which we can all ‘talk.’ Afterall, isn’t consulting just talking?

Of course I’m being flippant, and now is not the time to discuss perception management, however it is the place where I wanted to mention that sitting in a coffee shop chatting with a client or potential client is really freaking exspensive!

A one hour ‘chat’ basically carves your day in half - what with the travel, the lost focus, the lost momentum, and so forth. The format in the coffee shop is noisy, disruptive and ‘unprofessional.’ When was the last time you went for a consult with your Doctor or Lawyer in a coffee shop?

Remember, Doctors, Lawyers and other ‘knowledge traders’ have the same time as you. Moreover, they value their knowledge and time in different ways. I know, I know… I can almost hear the arguments now. But this is what I want you to take from this - value your time, it’s priceless. Maintain your image and your value through professional actions whenever you can.

Of course there are always exceptions, I know this. But use your judgment wisely - not all chats are created equal, some are straight-line time wasters and should be avoided. If someone wants to ‘chat’ with me I offer them this:

My one-on-one phone coaching package.

This private consultation approach includes an audio recording of the phone call session and a complete transcript of what was said. Not only do they get access to my intellectual capital and professional advice during the coaching session, they can re-listen to our conversation whenever they want, as well as re-reading the transcript at any time in the future - it’s priceless. In fact I’m so confident they’ll find this one-on-one coaching session valuable, I guarantee it 125%…

The price for a private 1 hour phone coaching session, with full audio recording and text transcript is $287. They pick a time and I call them. Payment is via credit card in advance, and here’s how the guarantee works: at 20 minutes into the call I stop and ask them if it’s valuable information and whether they’d like to continue. If they answer no we stop the session and I refund their credit card payment immediately. I even send them the audio recording of the first 20 minutes as a thank you for their time.

This offer does a couple of things: it gets rid of the time wasters, it maintains the value of my time, it keep up my professional image, and it pays me for my advice — which is sort of the point right?

So next time someone asks you to “meet up for a coffee and chat” remember they are essentially asking for FREE advice and we all know how much they’ll value your free advice…