Working One-on-One With Consumers

As you heard in the introduction to this week, the primary way in which experts or practitioners build a business or career is by offering a one-to-one service.

In preparing to work with consumers one-on-one, you might need to think about a few essential things, including:

Where you will work with consumers – for example, can you deliver your expertise online via a platform like Zoom? The benefits of this would be that you could see consumers anywhere, anytime, and significantly expand your service provision. If your service is reliant on a physical delivery (for example, acupuncture or massage), then you will need to start to consider where you can offer this by researching clinics or the possibility of seeing consumers in your own space.

What you will charge for a session – this a challenge for many expert practitioners in wellness – there are a few ways in which you can determine your price. The first is to consider the purchase capacity of your ideal consumer (i.e. whether they are high-income earners or low/middle-income earners). The next is to consider what other professionals are charging in your field as a benchmark to work from. You might think about the costs that you are incurring to offer the service, from materials, equipment, and tools, right through to the time required for you to deliver. You can always increase your price over time as your confidence and experience grow.

How you should prepare for a session – thinking about what kind of information you might require from your consumer before you see them, such as a consumer questionnaire that they complete beforehand, or a set of questions that you ask them at the beginning.

How you will run the session – this refers to the framework you follow to ensure that there is consistency in your sessions and a clear consumer journey to follow. This will also help you to ensure you run your sessions to time and do not fall into the common trap of overdelivering. When you first start out, you might feel that you need to over-deliver to compensate for a lack of experience…but remember, your time is your most valuable commodity, and you are probably providing more value in the allotted time than you realise.

How you will request and gather feedback – as you grow your business, reviews and testimonials will become more and more important as social proof of your expertise. Think about how you might gather this feedback, for example, by asking your consumers questions at the end about how they found the session, having them complete a form, or following up by email to ask for a testimonial.

Offering different types of sessions – sometimes experts will offer a longer session to consumers who are seeing them for the first time, in order to build a relationship, establish rapport, and understand the consumer’s pain points and frustrations more fully. This might be referred to as an introductory session, followed by regular sessions later on. Think in advance about whether you would like your consumers to have a longer initial consultation, and whether you make it compulsory for them to book multiple sessions (often referred to as a package or programme) or if you’re happy to offer one-off single sessions.

Terms and conditions – on a more logistical and practical level, you might consider having terms and conditions around your session bookings, for example, how far in advance somebody can change or cancel their booking, and any particular resources, materials, clothing, or other requirements they might need to bring or prepare for a session.

Any legal requirements – there will often be legal requirements for you to address with consumers, like legal waivers, consent forms, disclaimers, or safety measures that you should properly research before offering any kind of expert services.

Having a well-thought-out and planned approach to how, when, where and what you will offer consumers will make the experience better for both you and them. It enables you to focus on the core value proposition and ensure that consumers get the best service possible.

What do you think?

What do you think might be the benefit of offering packages of sessions over one-off sessions?

• How might this offer value to the consumer?
• How might it help you deliver your service?
• What other aspects of delivering a one-on-one service might you need to consider?